


Basileus

by SillyBlue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bottom Castiel, Case Fic, Creature Castiel, DCBB 2015, Demon Deals, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Top Dean Winchester, Winchesters in Europe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:17:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SillyBlue/pseuds/SillyBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A basilisk’s egg is said to be able to break any spell or curse and dissolve any claim on a human’s soul. With the ten years he had been given quickly coming to a close, Dean has no other option but to follow this one desperate lead. While Dean’d love to be able to escape the clutches of hell (and make sure that Sam doesn’t take the bait and follow him directly down into the fiery pits), he really, really doesn’t want to go hunt a probably extinct monster in Europe. But he needs a basilisk and apparently a town in Switzerland just happens to have one as its guardian beast.</p><p>It’s just Dean’s luck that this one wears a trench coat and is the hottest guy Dean’s ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been long in the making, or at least it’s been in my head since around 2012 and I'm glad that I could write it for this year's DCBB challenge. 
> 
> I couldn’t have done it without the cheerleading and beta qualities of [Eve](http://archiveofourown.org/users/esmerod)!  
> Also, many thanks to the amazing [Anna](carrionofmywaywardson.tumblr.com), who made wonderful art which you can find within this story and at her [art masterpost](http://lucyannethropy.livejournal.com/31823.html)!
> 
> Full warnings:  
> Frequent mentions of Dean’s impending death due to his demon deal, hell induced anxiety, trust issues, self-worth issues, some references to Dean’s bisexuality, Dean does some pining and they probably drink too much coffee. The story is mostly canon compliant until the end of season two and vaguely picks up on some story elements from the next couple of seasons (most notably they have the Men of Letters bunker and there are some references to Sam’s relationship with Ruby).
> 
> A note on the explicit nature: It’s got a single sex scene at the end of chapter 7. It can be skipped easily.

The morning was mild for this time of the year. A few umbrellas bobbed over the street, almost unnecessary in the soft drizzle. A tram came into view, long green shape winding around the corner and to a halt. The rain had stopped before the tram gave a ring and continued its path until it was out of sight. The black hands were nearing their mark. Piercing eyes turned away from the people setting up the stalls on the cobble stone square overlooking the tram station and swept over the facades of the rows of narrow houses climbing up the hill behind it.

A wind picked up and the flags hanging off the posts swayed lazily. The wind circled over the square and a bunch of pigeons fluttered upwards, over the museum and over the red umbrellas of the café to take their seat on top of a building. A newer one. Why the pigeons preferred this flat roof and the round plastic letters of the signs adorning the concrete over the unevenly sloping roof of the museum remained confusing. But those were pigeons and pigeons in this city knew to be careful about where they set their claws and turned down to rest. It was not unkind to them, but they knew not to trust the thing which made the wind rise and the city take a slow and strong breath of air into its deep, deep lungs.

Everything was silent and the black hand gave a shake before it jumped into action.

The moment of tension passed, the bells around town started chiming, the black hand of the clocks on the square reached their goal. The magic returned for another day.

It was ten o’clock on Thursday morning, _it_ perched on the roof of the old church, peering up into the clouds, and the city came awake.

* * *

Sam stared at the mess in the main room with mixed feelings. Dean was sitting at the table, with his eyes closed and rubbing his forehead with shaking fingers. There was still one book open in front of him, but all around him books and an occasional lamp were strewn about the floor. Sam understood his frustration and didn’t hide his anxiety as well as he hoped he could, but still… Someone had to keep it together.

“You’ve lost a battle against the lamp?” Sam asked and set his plastic bags down on the table next to Dean’s. Fortunately Dean’s fit of rage hadn’t greatly touched his work station. His laptop was still intact and so were the books even though some of his notes had been cast to the floor and his mug lay in pieces against the far wall.

“Shut up, Sam.” Dean said, his voice raspy and low. Sam did and just continued unpacking. He grabbed a beer and handed it to Dean. Dean stopped his constant rubbing motion and let his hand drop. He groaned and shifted until his joints popped and then he reached out for the beer. “Any luck?” Dean didn’t raise his head to look at Sam, keeping his expression neutral. There was no reason to get his hopes up and Sam didn’t really have anything good to tell him.

Dean just shrugged at Sam’s helpless silence and the jerky shake of his head. He drained the beer and then crushed the can. He quirked his eyebrows up before he heaved himself out of his chair with a groan: “Well, that’s what I guessed.”

“Dean, there has got to be something out there. We haven’t even gone through all the books yet. Charlie’s still trying to decode that demon lore book. Maybe there’s something in there.” Dean dragged his hand through his hair, making it stick up all over the place.

“And maybe there isn’t, Sam. Maybe you’ll just have to face the fact that this is branded in my soul,” he said harshly and Sam tensed. They’ve had this argument increasingly often over the last year. “We’ve tried everything, man, and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. So what we’ve got to do instead of running around like-“

“We’re not giving up on this,” Sam interrupted sharply, glaring at his brother. Dean met his eyes for a moment but then he lowered his head and shook it. “Dean, we’re not giving up at all.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, chuckling mirthlessly and Sam narrowed his eyes. “We’re just doing the wrong kind of damage control.” Sam clenched his fists on top of the table, wondering about the measure of satisfaction it would cause him to send his books flying down to the floor in a fit of anger just like Dean had previously.

Luckily for both of them the tense silence was interrupted by the ringing of Sam’s phone. Sam cast Dean a quick look, seeing his brother slump back against the edge of the table, the fight temporarily having left him. It wasn’t a good sign, but maybe it was better than him fighting Sam in case they had to go down… well… _that_ road.

He pulled the phone out of his back pocket, relieved to see Bobby’s name come up on the screen.

“Bobby?” He couldn’t help sounding hopeful because if there was one person to find the missing puzzle piece it had to be Bobby. “Any good news?”

_“I might have something for you.”_

* * *

Of all the shitty things that have happened to Dean in the last… well 30 years give or take, this one probably took the cake.

“Oh come on, man, why are you so vehemently against this?” They’d been arguing in circles for the last two days and Dean felt like Sam was starting to sound like a broken record. But maybe so was he since they were both being increasingly stubborn about what they wanted (which might be the same thing but the execution clearly went in totally different directions). Sam stuffed a book that he certainly wouldn’t need into his suitcase. Suitcases. Since when did the two of them actually own anything that wasn’t a duffle bag?

“Why? Well maybe because this sounds like a freaking dead end and I don’t have to cross an ocean to figure that out!” Dean argued back, hands firmly crossed over his chest and demonstratively not moving one muscle to help. He was sure Sam had already packed his crap for him anyway. Sam groaned in exasperation, but chose to first force the suitcase closed before he answered.

“You don’t know that, Dean! We’ve chased down every lead we could so far, so we’ve got to look elsewhere for-“

“Not in fucking _Europe_!” Dean shouted and Sam’s mouth snapped shut, but the narrowing of his eyes signaled that he was far from done arguing his case. Dean uncrossed his arms and balled his hands to fists at his sides. “Do you know how long this might take? Do you really think this is worth wasting weeks? Do you even know how close May is?” Dean wasn’t proud of it but he was glad to see some of the fight draining out of Sam just like that. Somehow the same exhaustion which made his brother look older than he really was, was pulling at Dean’s chest. He sighed deeply and shook his head.

“I know how close it is… Believe me, I’ve been keeping track of every day,” Sam said quietly, more to himself than to Dean. Then, slowly, he resumed sorting through the things that he hadn’t packed. Dean watched him until finally Sam was ready to carry the suitcase to the garage. Dean didn’t follow him, but instead sat down heavily. After a moment of hesitation he pulled the files close. Bobby hadn’t found a whole lot for them to go on and they were still waiting to hear back from Bela since magical objects were her area of expertise. The Men of Letters library had very little to offer either so Dean felt that not wanting to go off into the blue on a hunch was justified.

“Basilisk eggs,” he snorted and opened the thin manila folder to read the sparse information once again.

_“Catalogue of Men of Letters Bestiary – B_

_Basilisk. (Mythological great beast, extinct)_

_Like with most creatures that found their way into popular knowledge, imagination mixed liberally with fact. No Man of Letter has come into contact with this beast and only second hand tales are available._

_It was suggested that Basilisks exist in various forms, with their king making its nest in the bellies of cities (see Cuthbert Sinclair’s encyclopedia of creatures - > great beast) while smaller Basilisks are nothing more than dangerous animals that have only a fraction of the magical merits of its king. See entries for minor basilisk: scales and minor basilisk: crown. _

_The species in general has been hunted for their bodies which have magical properties and it’s assumed that this drove them to extinction.”_

“They don’t even say anything about basilisk eggs,” Dean complained when Sam was back. His brother wiped his hair out of his face with an air of frustration.

“Sinclair’s encyclopedia does, Dean. There is ample evidence that the eggs have magical properties, which can repel demons, free you from any curse and break a devil’s hold over you. I think that’s what we need,” Sam said and grabbed the folder from underneath Dean’s elbows. Dean shouted in protest but Sam was already flipping the folder shut and stuffing it into a bag.

“Yeah maybe, but have you missed the part that says ‘extinct’?” Dean asked tersely, pushing himself away from the table and getting up.

“Rufus is sure that he crossed a basilisk and both Bobby and I trust Rufus’ judgement,” Sam argued and Dean had heard it a thousand times. Dean didn’t need to walk around like a tiger in a cage for Sam to know that he was being difficult because he was nervous.

“I might never see this place again, you know that?” he finally said and it felt like a punch in the gut to admit to it. He shoved the feeling deep down. “If I get into that plane it might crash or we’re stuck there until May and then I’ll be stranded in a place where I don’t even speak the language to flirt with the ladies,” he complained loudly but both he and Sam knew that this was him giving in to Sam’s wishes. When Dean looked up he saw a bright grin on Sam’s face and that almost made the icy dread in the pit of his stomach worth it. Because he wasn’t really joking. He didn’t want to leave.

“The plane won’t crash and you know it,” Sam told him, “you won’t die before the ten years of your deal are up.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“A small comfort,” he muttered and followed Sam to the garage, trying not to think of this as good-bye.

* * *

One of the major flaws in the Winchester’s planning was that neither of them were adequately prepared for a hunt outside of North America. They knew nothing about hunting networks, nothing about how to access the libraries, how to get weapons, where to get ingredients. Both might have skills in non-English languages and had mastered Latin long ago but this was terra nova. And they were totally out of their depth.

Rufus (who apparently was home everywhere and had his connections all over the globe) had been kind enough to arrange lodgings for them with a friend of a friend of a relative, who spoke some words of warning (or welcome?) in French and then handed them the key. Getting there with a taxi had been relatively easy (if not surprisingly pricey) but now they were on this foreign continent, surrounded by people speaking a foreign mumble jumble.

“You know, it could be worse?” Sam asked and rubbed his sleeve against the window until he could look outside at the beautiful view of the next building’s wall.

“Worse than being in a country where they speak French, in a tiny ass hut where you hit your head every two minutes, located directly next to a sex shop?”

“Most people speak German here,” Sam interjected but Dean only glared at him. “Besides, it’s not so bad. When do you get the chance to stay in a house built in the 15th century?” Dean frowned because he really didn’t care about that. Living in the bunker was historical enough for him, but he let Sam have his two minutes of geeking out.

“Okay. So according to Rufus the creature showed up… uhm,” Dean bent over the map spread out on the table, trying to make sense of it. But after 3 minutes of staring he gave up. If he could figure out how to get the internet running this would be way faster.

“Dean, let’s just wait to meet Rufus. You’ve puked so much on the flight you must be totally exhausted,” Dean heard Sam say, but he just flipped him off and looked at the name of the place again where they were supposed to meet Rufus before he travelled off to God knows where to hunt God knows what. He was still glaring at nothing in particular when he heard the sound of wood cracking and Sam curse. He looked over his shoulder, not even trying to hold back the grin when he saw Sam rub his forehead. He had opened the door to look out into the street again. It was still quite early in the day and next to a couple of kids walking or pushing their bikes up the hill nobody seemed to be about. There was a bridge close by which crossed over the Rhine and Dean could hear the sound of a tram rattling by. The house shook slightly and Dean already felt a headache coming.

“We’re due to meet Rufus tomorrow shortly before ten on…”

“Barfüsserplatz.”

“Right. So that leaves us with plenty of time to just do some sight-seeing, figuring out what is where?” The questioning tone made Dean look up from the laptop he had just pulled out of Sam’s bag. Sam was looking at him with big, pleading eyes, signaling to Dean that his brother only had his best interests in mind. Dean resented constantly being the object of all the concerned pitying looks.

“You can go sight-seeing all you want. I’m here to work. And the sooner I get my ass back in my car and my feet back on American soil the better,” he said grouchily even though he was being difficult on principle alone. He had no idea where to get food, but food was always a good idea. Maybe there was a diner around somewhere. If they even had diners in this joke of a country.

* * *

Oh how he dreamt of darkness.

Of the taste of sulfur closing in on him with the ticking of the clock.

* * *

They had passed the square where they were to meet Rufus on the previous day. They had followed the road leading away from the Rhine. This time of the day the pedestrians only rule didn’t yet apply, but there was just one vehicle that made Dean and Sam step to the side.

Basel, they had found, was surprisingly manageable for being one of the biggest cities in the country. Sure, it probably sprawled out into suburbs, but the core was contained. Sam had wanted to explore, to also head over to the other side of the river, but Dean had vehemently refused to do more than the bare necessity (which was eating and grumbling) and Sam acted like a puppy with abandonment issues and didn’t want to leave his side.

They didn’t return to that one diner they had found for breakfast because the price of a diner here came quite close to what Dean had to pay for a not too shabby restaurant back at home (not that he ever visited not too shabby restaurants unless Bela was paying out of gratitude or pity).

They ducked into one of the few open, promising looking shops and grabbed something cheap for breakfast that hardly satisfied Dean’s need for something substantial. Sam shot him an irritated look while he fumbled with the foreign currency and then he joined his brother outside. From here they just had to cross to the other side of the street, duck under the red umbrellas of a café, and ascend a couple of steps to be on the elevated, cobble stone platform that made up Barfüsserplatz. Dean squinted towards the pole holding a clock. It was a quarter to ten and it was a grey morning, not exactly cloudy but there seemed to be a haze of fog making the sky look milky white.

“There you boys are,” a familiar and welcome voice called and Dean swallowed the rest of his chocolate croissant (hardly a warrior’s breakfast) before he pulled his mouth into a wide grin.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Rufus,” Dean said and Rufus laughed. They exchanged brief greetings before Rufus cut straight to business.

“I’ve just been coming through here on my journey, stocking up on some stuff,” he said, “when I came across this.”

“What exactly is this, anyway? Why are we meeting here?” Sam asked and looked over his shoulder. It was a fairly public place and they stood out enough in their dress and language to draw attention. Rufus however seemed undisturbed. He checked his own watch and nodded to himself.

“It’s almost time. Just shut your traps and keep your eyes open.” Dean shot his brother an unimpressed look, before he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and gazed about himself. Nothing was out of the ordinary; a couple of pigeons were pecking at some crumbs that had been left behind by the wooden benches on the other side of the square. Behind him rose a building that looked pitifully asymmetrical and a woman was currently cleaning the glass doors leading inside. Dean couldn’t perceive much beyond a darkened interior but from Sam’s babbling yesterday he knew it to be an old church turned into a history museum. Nothing suspicious was going on, not that it was easy to tell apart human from monster, but Rufus eyes weren’t focused on anybody, instead he checked his watch again. Dean was about to ask if a ghost tram would tucker around the corner when the clock stroke ten and he felt it.

A shiver went through him like the soft caress of fingers brushing over his shoulders. He suppressed a gasp but took his hands out of his pockets to grab for his knife. Rufus reached out to stay him and Dean relented with a frown. The wind picked up and ruffled Sam’s hair. The pigeons suddenly took flight and then a bell started chiming its melody and a booming bell rang ten times. Something was happening, Dean held his breath and then the wind stopped and the strange tension passed them by. Dean could breathe easily again.

For a moment he was dazed, confused and there was just the faintest ringing in his ears which soon faded into nothing, like the chime of the bells.

“And?” Sam asked, his face a mask of confusion. Dean looked past him and up at the clock. It was barely a minute after ten. “What was it?”

“You’re the psychic among us, surely you will have noticed that there was a sudden influx of power in the air,” Rufus huffed and Sam lifted his eyebrow. If Rufus was surprised that Sam’s powers didn’t allow him an insight into what had happened, then he didn’t show it. He merely turned to Dean. “What about you, son? Is hell closing in already?” Dean made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat, but then he looked around again. Behind him the door of the museum punctually opened for visitors.

“It’s all still pretty hazy. I only felt some…” Dean lifted his hand to rub his chin, trying to call the sensation back into memory. What had it been? Surely that brush across his shoulder hadn’t been real. He dropped his hand and shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. Some energy I suppose. Nothing concrete or corporal. Not like a ghost. Bigger somehow, less dense.” Rufus nodded along.

“How can you two notice that? I just felt the wind,” Sam complained, clearly upset, but not too much otherwise he wouldn’t be whining. Dean tried to find some amusement in it.

“Well, I guess that means that we’re not dealing with any hell business, right?”

“You know what we’re dealing with,” Rufus reminded him and when both Winchesters looked at him, he sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Let’s get a cup of coffee and talk it over before I have to be gone.”

“Why do you have to be gone anyway? Isn’t this important?” Dean dared to ask even though he knew it was hardly a good idea to bully Rufus into anything.

“Do I look like I don’t have other important shit to do?” Rufus asked, leading them away from Barfüsserplatz, around the right side of the church. Dean lifted his head, looking up the pale façade with its narrow, high windows and then the roof. The sun reflected off it oddly, making Dean feel like there was a flicker of a shadow that wasn’t supposed to be there. He still stared at it, until he was forced to look where he was going. Rufus guided them past old grave stones suspended on a wall and then out into one of the main streets again. There was a Starbucks up ahead and Dean momentarily felt a sense of fond irritation – at least that was the same as at home. But Rufus didn’t lead them there and instead turned into a side street and into a smaller, quieter place. They took seats in low armchairs in a bit of a hidden corner. There were some other patrons, reading the newspaper and magazines. Rufus ordered for all of them, though Dean was sure that he would have managed to order a coffee for himself.

“When I first noticed it I thought spirit. It was close to a church and until last century this was where the poor lived too. Terrible conditions, cholera outbreaks, the works. But then there was no drop in temperature, no EMF. It wasn’t demonic either. There actually was nothing to suggest there was something. Just my gut feeling.”

“So what makes you think basilisk? The Men of Letters library says their extinct, like the phoenix for example,” Dean said and Rufus sipped his coffee, not answering immediately. It gave Dean a moment to think back to the feeling. If this were his case, what would he even do? He knew that some magic and supernatural events left energy imprints. This is most likely what he felt, rather than the being itself.

“I wasn’t sure at all what I was dealing with. I thought maybe a fairy or some kind of not necessarily bad indigenous thing. So I did some research, stuck around for a while and I did notice a pattern of kind,” Rufus continued at last.

“The time. Ten o’clock on a Thursday morning,” Sam added, receiving a silent nod in reply. “So maybe it’s a ghost after all? Or an echo?”

“Or a pagan god maybe? Do they have pagan gods here?” Dean wondered but before either could react he continued: “were there consequences to the energy discharge?”

“Yes and no,” Rufus hedged and put a notebook on his table. He flipped through it, checking dates and graphs and newspaper clippings. “No negative consequences I can really speak of. Actually, almost nothing at all. No demonic omens, no freaky deaths, no vengeful spirits. For a country that still burned witches at the tail end of the 18th century, this place seems surprisingly docile.” Dean bit back a laugh. Rufus’ displeasure at this place being too clean of supernatural entities was quite amusing. It’s almost as if he was personally offended that there was nothing to hunt.

“So pagan god seems like a good guess,” Sam summarized, “but that means that there’s got to be a sacrifice of some sort. Maybe even frequently if that magic repeats every Thursday.”

“Nothing I could find, but it doesn’t have to be a conspicuous sacrifice if whoever is doing it is good at what they do. This town has Celtic roots, so I tried to find something. There’s not much left of it, but I did go visit a Celtic tomb close-by to see if there’s any funky business going on there. But no.”

“Doesn’t mean that there’s nothing going on, right?” Dean suggested, balling his hands into fists. A pagan god would be relatively easy to deal with. They had killed enough of them to know the drill by now. He had to remind himself that this was not a case where killing the bad guy was the main incentive.

“But it’s not a pagan god, you actually called us here because you’re thinking that we’re dealing with a basilisk,” Dean observed.

“Yeah, I do… Because after the pagan god trail led nowhere I thought about other things that can protect. Have you guys actually kept your eyes open while walking around?” Rufus asked and the question made the Winchesters look at each other in confusion. “Seen any green fountains? Small things, more like a statue with a small basin.”

“Oh, right, yes I do remember seeing something like that,” Sam said even though Dean was still frowning. “What is it?”

“A basilisk,” Rufus answered. “Basel has a number of basilisk legends and I think that it might be because it was one of the Great Beasts. Protectors of settlements. Though, you know, not always the wholly good kind.”

Great Beasts. Dean remembered tracing the term with his fingers countless times.

“They’re-“

“Monsters that raise to the kind of power that pagan gods can have,” Dean muttered, interrupting Rufus explanation. He felt two sets of eyes on him, but he was looking down into the cup of coffee. “Human settlements have often managed to thrive where a Great Beast chose to settle down. Sometimes a Great Beast only chose a city after it had been established. Great Beasts can make a town prosper, but they can also bring great calamity.”

“Exactly,” Rufus said with an approving tone and Dean finally looked up to roll his eyes.

“Hey, I do research on occasion,” he complained and got an amused snort from Sam for it. “So you think that basilisk is still here?”

“I don’t know. _Something_ is certainly here. If it’s the Great Beast or just some offspring, I can’t tell. But thinking about the lack of supernatural activity here, I do think that we’re dealing with something powerful. And that’s why I called Bobby. I hope this is something for you two.” Dean could hear the regretful, heavy tone his voice had taken on and he looked up into Rufus’ face. There was no reproach there and no obvious pity, but the atmosphere had turned sorrowful anyway. Dean couldn’t help withdrawing slightly, feeling apprehension hit the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah… Thank you,” he managed to say and hoped that it would be over now. He really didn’t want to think about this right now.

“So we’ve got to find out where that thing is and capture it? Or just go into its lair to… hope there are eggs to steal?” Sam asked and Dean saw Rufus shrug. He sighed, because he knew that this would be a difficult case and he wasn’t sure if it was even worth it. He raised his eyes beyond the table and looked out of the window just to catch a flicker of something tan colored slip out of view. A trench coat maybe? Dean turned back to his coffee, stirring the silver spoon in its dark, quickly cooling liquid.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean officially hated this case by the second day they were on their own. Sam was pacing the small living room space, three strides towards the door, three strides towards where Dean sat with the folders he had read dozens of times, and again three strides back towards the door.

The wooden beams gave a small groan and then the windows started to rattle as another tram drove a curve. Sam continued pacing, eyes glued to the page he was flipping. Whatever he had found in there wasn’t good enough for him to share, but they were desperate enough to grasp at straws.

Dean turned back to the files and the line he had marked with a pen.

“Used by a master of magic, a basilisk’s egg will break any spell, cure any curse and negate any contract.”

A thump resounded and the wooden table screeched over the tiles when Sam took four steps instead of three. Sam was too tall for this house, they had too little time for this case. Dean was really starting to feel claustrophobic. He grunted and grabbed the laptop, shoving it into a bag.

“Where are you going?” Sam’s alarmed voice accompanied Dean out of the door.

“I need internet,” Dean grunted and shouldered the bag. He looked at Sam, his expression scrunched up. “I’m going to find a Starbucks.” He closed the door before Sam could reply and breathed a sigh of relief when he was out of that too old, too small, too unfamiliar house. He took a couple of breaths, the air fresh and a bit chilly despite the advent of spring. He knew that Sam would find his way there on his own, it was after all just left and then following the street until the green, round sign mocked Dean and all the proper coffee consumption he stood for. It was easy to get there, he didn’t even need to open his mouth to ask for directions. He turned the corner and promptly almost ran into someone.

“Shit, sorry,” Dean hissed when he came to an abrupt stop. A man was standing in front of him, completely unperturbed by the near collision. But he also didn’t, like any other normal person, just continue on his way with a muttered, insignificant something. Instead he stared. Dean had seen the generic trench coat (it looked almost familiar, but to be honest all trench coats kind of looked the same) before he focused on the sharp gaze of blue eyes. The guy in front of him was shorter than Dean, with dark windswept hair. Reasonably attractive in Dean’s opinion and if he weren’t on the way to do something important and if he knew how to flirt in German he’d probably say something charming about their chance encounter. And the weird silent staring. But Dean was busy. And to be honest all of Dean’s clever remarks never quite managed to pass his lips, because it was a dude. “Uhm.” That seemed to spur the guy into action. Without breaking eye contact he slowly lowered his head in acknowledgement, but then he stepped to the side and passed Dean. A shiver went through him and he looked over his shoulder, seeing the guy walk towards the bridge.

“Dude, what was that?” Dean gave a start and turned around to see Sam with his hands pushed deep into his pockets and a bright grin plastered on his face.

“What was what?” Dean bit out, feeling his face heat at being caught unaware by Sam. Sam just shrugged innocently but when Dean huffed and started walking towards the coffee shop he opened his annoying mouth again:

“Oh I don’t know. Seems you were pretty smitten with the trench coat wearing guy. I didn’t know that Swiss bankers were part of the “local wildlife” that you want to get a taste of.” Dean groaned but didn’t dignify Sam’s chortling laughter with an answer. “The way he stared was a bit intense. Did you say something rude to him?”

“No,” Dean snapped indignantly.

“Sure?”

“I just said ‘shit sorry’. I think that’s universally intelligible,” Dean said, absolutely done with this nonsense conversation.

“Well, Basel is small. It’s possible you’ll run into him again,” Sam told him confidently. The walk down Freie Strasse was incredibly long, especially when Dean could swear he felt that Sam was still wearing a smug grin. And okay fine, he’d give him this small excitement if it made him happy. At last Starbucks came into view and he breathed a deep sigh of relief. He let Sam handle the order even though the extent of Sam’s German skills were “Hallo” and “Danke”. He would manage, there wasn’t a lot that you could do wrong with drinks that were called the same everywhere.

Dean walked down the flight of stairs into a spacious room. There was even some sort of free standing, tiled fireplace, giving the coffee shop an even more pretentious look. But there was wifi and for the moment that had to be enough. Due to the early hour of the day the place was almost deserted. He chose a pair of armchairs behind the fireplace where he felt he’d be pretty undisturbed no matter what odd case related things he’d pull up.

By the time Sam handed him a steaming cup of simple black coffee and a cookie Dean had already logged in and started pulling up pages.

“Okay, so this thing? Deadly, right? It says here, that the… wait… the mere look of this thing kills you. But not if there’s no sunlight.”

“Sunlight?” Sam asked, this information being new for both of them. Sam pulled a notebook out of his jacket and started writing. “So… he’s day active?”

“Beats me, but if it’s true then this fucker can’t kill us with his peepers alone during night time. Sounds good to me,” Dean said, scrolling further down. “But this thing isn’t like in Harry Potter, dude.”

“Big surprise,” Sam said, huffing a laugh. “It’s not a serpent, right?”

“No… And it’s… smallish. Or maybe they’re talking about a minor basilisk here and not the king… In any case it’s smaller than Switzerland’s dragons.”

“They have dragons here?” Sam asked dubiously. Dean however wasn’t really interested in that and running into more things that could potentially kill him wasn’t on his to do list.

“This thing is poisonous too. If you try to stab it, it’ll apparently send some kind of venom right up through the weapon. Doesn’t really sound plausible to me though…”

“Maybe it can conduct electricity? So that if you stab it with something that conducts electricity you’re toast?” Sam wondered. “Is there anything about how it can be killed?”

“Yeah, redirect its gaze on it,” Dean said and lifted his eyebrow at Sam. “With a mirror.” Sam didn’t say anything in a while. “Or toss a weasel at it. According to Wikipedia weasel farts kill it too.”

“That… sounds fake.” Dean snorted.

“Lots of things we do sound fake. I just worry about whether a mirror works at night. Maybe we can just stab it with something wooden. Man, I wish we can just stab it and be done with it.”

“What about how to find it? Or anything on the eggs?” Sam wondered and wanted to grab the laptop. Dean however swatted his hand away. “Dean.”

“I’ve got this, you just drink your strawberry coffee,” Dean grunted and Sam let himself fall back into the chair with a snort. But a quick look over the top of the laptop’s rim showed him a tiny, pleased smile on Sam’s face. “What?”

“Nothing!” Sam said but it was never nothing and after a moment Sam continued with a laugh: “it’s just good to see you motivated. Even if it’s just to stab some monster.” Dean looked at his brother for a while, then he averted his eyes again, clicking through the site. The silence that followed wasn’t tense, but Sam’s words had brought back the apprehension that always gnawed at Dean at the back of his head.

“The good thing is that here it says that you can find a basilisk easily – wherever it walks it makes grass turn dry. The bad thing is that we’re in a city with almost no grass,” Dean said and he could hear Sam sigh. “But it also said that when this city was founded, the basilisk already lived in its cave.” Sam immediately shifted forwards again, staring at Dean with wide, excited eyes.

“Really? If Rufus was right and it’s a guardian beast, that thing might still be around!” Dean couldn’t prevent the small smile from tugging at his lips. “That’s a good thing!”

“Yeah, I guess so? I mean we can go to that cave once the sun has gone down and check it out.” Dean clicked around some more. “Oh…”

“Oh what?”

“Well, that place is close by but it’s all concrete. There’s a small fountain, but I really doubt we’ll find our monster there…,” Dean told him. “Though I wonder if when it says it lives in caves, he might just have resettled downstairs, into the sewers…”

“You think a guardian beast lives in sewers…?” Sam asked dubiously, but Dean relinquished his hold on the laptop when Sam pulled it towards him. The picture of the fountain was still open, tucked between a building and a stairway.

“Well, it has to live somewhere? The energy seems to be focused on Barfüsserplatz, so why not around there?” Dean suggested and leant back in his armchair to finally drink his coffee. They knew only a fraction more than they knew yesterday, but the important part was to get the eggs. And there had been nothing about them. When he said as much Sam made an unhappy face.

“I’m pretty sure that we have to find its nest to know if there are eggs.”

“But where is the nest…?” Sam asked. Well, that was the big question.

* * *

Beneath him a long line of stairs led into the dark. Walls rose on both sides, narrowing him in. Bone white walls and closed shutters the color of drying, flaking blood. He didn’t walk and he didn’t think that he was breathing either. Maybe he was waiting for something, the uneasy knot in his stomach twisted up in anticipation. When he raised his head the sky was impossibly far away, dusty and white almost, like layers upon layers of chalk. He knew that he couldn’t go back, he didn’t even know how to turn around. There was only down towards that darkness. He took a step and the stones beneath his feet felt hot. The darkness swallowed the end of the pathway creeping up closer and closer even though Dean made no other step to approach it. Above him, a wooden sign flapped in a nonexistent wind. A basilisk was sticking out his tongue. The sign beat against the wall. Again, again, again.

* * *

Dean groaned his way through the cup of coffee.

“Dude, did you get any sleep?” Sam asked somewhere to his side, his voice sounding between reproachful and concerned.

“As if I could get any sleep in this rickety old bed,” Dean complained and rolled his shoulders until his joints popped. It didn’t really help. He didn’t need to tell Sam about the nightmares. They both knew that Dean was slowly toeing the fringes here. It felt like May was just around the corner and he really didn’t want to spend his last months chasing after dead ends.

They had managed to slip down into the sewers relatively easy. A trip to the local history museum had been enough to tell them that a small stream had been relegated under concrete. It had been a hotbed of disease, like Rufus had told them. There were guided tours into the belly of the city precisely because of that and Dean and Sam had played the interested tourists and gotten a guide. It was enough to get a first look at the place and then to break in later that day. And while Dean was glad that they got out without local authorities finding out about their trespassing, the trip had proved to be pointless.

“No fucking nest, no fucking eggs. No nothing! I’m starting to believe that there’s no fucking beast anywhere!” Dean complained loudly enough to make some people look up. Dean didn’t even care. He drank the rest of the coffee and then glumly looked on. They were on the market square, the red building of the city hall rising behind them. A tram rang its bell and then drove past and revealed the buildings behind. Or more specifically the street behind it. Dean didn’t look all too closely, but then he noticed a trench coat flutter in the chilly breeze and he was suddenly more awake than before. A couple of days had passed since the last time he had seen the banker guy and Dean might have thought about him once or twice (maybe, if he was honest, he also thought about him once or twice in the shower. Sue him).

“Dude!” Dean hissed and slapped the back of his hand against Sam’s chest. Before Sam could complain or ask what was going on, Dean was already crossing the tram tracks. It could be any trench coat wearing guy, surely it could be. But the dark, messy hair, the black trousers. But by the time Dean reached the end of the road the guy was gone. Vanished into thin air (or more likely a shop). Dean cursed internally but wouldn’t tell Sam what had gotten into him. He was about to turn back around when he noticed the narrow alley. It was only a small gap between two high buildings, something you might pass if you didn’t look carefully. Up and up it went, stairs leading to somewhere Dean didn’t see. He froze and Sam sounded increasingly worried as he asked Dean what was going on.

“I dreamt about this place,” he finally said and that got Sam to shut up instantly.

“What?” Dean approached the mouth of the alley and touched the walls.

“I mean I was standing on the other end, at the top. But it was definitely this place.”

“You’re having premonitions now?” Sam asked tentatively.

“I don’t know… I was just trying to chase the-“ he stopped but it was already too late if Sam’s expression was anything to go by. “I saw the guy again, okay?”

“The one in the trench coat?” Sam asked and his smile was so bright it started to dimple his cheeks. “Aww, that’s so romantic.”

“Shut your face,” Dean hissed and turned back to the stairs. He tentatively put a foot on the first step and when that didn’t crumble away underneath him, he started walking.

“Well, the houses don’t have red shutters, so that’s already different,” Dean said and then he saw the sign. It was towards the very top of the stairs and he stared at it. There was no basilisk on it, just the city’s symbol.

“Dean?” Sam appeared next to him, following his gaze up to the sign.

“That was different too. This is fucking weird, man,” Dean complained and then he looked around. They were in an empty street, way broader than the alley they had just gotten out of. The houses here were big and old, probably having belonged to some rich people back in previous centuries.

“Where are we now?” Sam pulled out the small map he had gotten at the tourist info and studied it for a while.

“It’s called Na… Nadelberg or something? I think the university campus is behind this row of houses.” Dean nodded mutely, then they walked around for a lack of something else to do. A turn and more walking later they were back on a regular road, where cars were even allowed to drive. There was a bus stop and across the street a tram was unloading passengers.

“I wonder where trench coat guy went,” Dean muttered to himself and Sam shot him a look that Dean didn’t know how to interpret. “What?” He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be defensive. Before Sam had been grinning and teasing and now something gloomy had passed over his features.

“I think if we follow the tram tracks we get to one of the towers that made up the old city wall,” Sam said, hiding whatever he was thinking behind stupid nerdy facts that didn’t interest Dean. He let himself be pulled along, following the tram tracks until he could actually see the tower. It was quite impressive. Since there was no more city wall, it just stood openly, with the street curving lightly around it before it crossed a normal street full of traffic.

“Not bad,” Dean said but that was the extent of his curiosity and after Sam had taken pictures like a proper tourists they went back where they had come from, but ducked into something that called itself a bar but looked like a fancy coffee shop.

“What was that previous frowny face about?” Dean asked when there was a beer in front of him while Sam was happy to drink another cup of coffee.

“I don’t know… Don’t you think it’s weird?” he asked and Dean had no idea what he was talking about. “Your guy? He shows up out of nowhere and guided you right to the alley you saw in your dream?” Dean put the beer back down and stared at Sam. “I mean… Hasn’t it crossed your mind that it might not be a coincidence?”

“What, you mean to say that that guy in a trench coat is some sort of monster? In a town where monsters don’t exist? I mean there wasn’t even a spirit bothering us!”

“It’s not like we’d notice. We can’t read the newspaper anyway,” Sam shot back but Dean only narrowed his eyes at his brother. “And it’s not like monsters don’t exist here. We are explicitly trying to find one.”

“So you want to imply that he’s our monster. A basilisk in a trench coat?” Dean could hardly keep the sneer out of his voice. Sam groaned and shook his head.

“When you say it like that it sounds unconvincing, but-“

“That’s because it is unconvincing, Sam! And besides, it’s not me that always ends up having the hots for supernatural freaks. I’m the Winchester with respectable relationships.” Sam huffed in disbelief.

“Respectable relationships? You call your string of one night stands you pick up in seedy bars respectable relationships?” Sam questioned, spots of red on his cheeks. Dean leant back in his chair, an easy, smug grin on his face.

“Damn right I do.” Sam just gaped at him in annoyance, but then he threw up his hands and bit back any further remarks. But even though there was silence now, the question still circled around Dean’s head. Was there any truth in what Sam had said? Or was it merely a coincidence?

Coincidence, yeah right. As if Dean would ever be that lucky.

“So next time he shows up we’ll follow him,” Dean decided after a while and Sam didn’t even bat an eyelash at the sudden continuation of the topic. Dean groaned. “Great, this is totally gonna blow my chances of getting laid.”

“What a hardship, my heart bleeds for you,” Sam teased dryly but when Dean glared at his brother, a hint of pity seeped into his expression. “Dean.”

“I’m gonna take a piss,” Dean decided, cutting the conversation short and Sam knew when to drop a subject.

* * *

A week dragged on and on and nothing new came up. They had checked every green space this city had to offer for dead grass. They tried to find other potential holes the creature could hide out in. Anything weird. But they just didn’t find anything.

Thursday passed with the familiar explosion of bells at 10 o’clock in the morning. Dean was glaring at the clock overlooking Barfüsserplatz with disdain. The slight tingling of magic brushed past Dean without giving him a hint of an idea what they were dealing with.

“Maybe… Maybe we have to get some professional help,” Sam suggested and Dean raised his eyebrow at him. “Dig into some archives, find out about catastrophes happening in this city that might be attributed to this thing? Great beasts take offerings, right?” Dean really didn’t feel like doing this but maybe they had no other choice. “Or maybe we should just try to make this thing come for us… Maybe if we can make it aware of us?”

“And then what? You want the basilisk to come for us, here in broad daylight? It’s gonna kill everyone, Sam! Us included!” Dean complained and Sam lifted his hands defensively. A moment of silence passed and then Sam slowly inclined his head towards the history museum. “So we’re gonna ask around?” Dean sighed deeply but then he shrugged. “Hey,” Sam stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t I go research and you wait around here? It seems like you can feel this thing when I can’t. And maybe it’s still around.” Dean lifted an eyebrow, but Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out something round and colorful. “Take this. It’s a mirror.” Dean eyed the thing skeptically but when he looked up at Sam his brother just narrowed his eyes at him.

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean grumbled. “It’s not like I want to do research.”

“I’ll try to be quick,” Sam promised and then he was gone. Dean could hear the gentle slam of the doors behind him, but he stared at the pocket mirror instead. It lay in his palm, in all its pink and gold star glory. Dean flipped it open, seeing his own face reflected and then he moved it around a bit, the tiny world in the round mirror shifting around him. But the world was reflected to him was entirely the same that Dean saw with his own eyes. Dean wasn’t entirely disappointed, but he still sighed when he snapped it shut and stuffed it into his pocket.

* * *

Dean was digging his heels into the gravel. Desperate determination kept his body still, taunt. He could run at any moment, but he knew he would never do it.

“Predictable,” the demon said in a bored tone but then she looked back down on the screen of her mobile phone. Something flickered over her face, but then her red lips pulled into a smile and she raised her eyes to meet his. “I’m giving you the full ten.”

“Why.” Dean demanded to know, not letting on the surprise. He had just managed to secure one year and that was more than he had expected to get out of it.

“Because he’ll come running for you anyway. I have pride in my high quality work. I’m not going to let you sell your soul just so that he’ll throw his life away after only one year.” A heavy silence followed this statement. “So…” She smiled. “Do we have a deal?”

* * *

Dean pressed the heel of his hand into his eye socket, trying to will away a headache. Sam had been gone for over an hour and Dean was getting bored just watching and waiting. He pulled the small mirror out of his pocket again and lifted it up. His own tired and pissed off face looked back at him. He lowered it and almost dropped it when he spotted him again. Across the square was the trench coat guy. He apparently hadn’t noticed Dean and he was walking away from him, steering towards the path leading around the museum’s right side. A part of him knew that he should just quietly follow him, but a bigger part of him was still skeptical about what Sam had suggested. So he quickly got to his feet and jogged over the square.

“Hey!” he called and the guy stopped, turning his head over his shoulder with a confused frown, apparently unsure if he was being addressed. When he saw Dean however the frown disappeared and he turned around fully to face him. They were standing in the shadow of the church. It was silent here, just a fountain gurgling a couple of meters away. And now that they were face to face again Dean had absolutely no idea what to say. He cleared his throat, fumbling for words. “Wir… Wir haben uns schon einmal gesehen,” he tried, sure it sounded stilted but only a flicker of surprise crossed the guy’s face. “Ich bin Dean.”

“Castiel,” the guy replied, reaching out to shake Dean’s offered hand. “You’re not from here.” Dean startled at hearing the flawless English, but then he let out a big huff.

“Thank god, I thought I’d have to embarrass myself further,” he said and when he noticed that Castiel’s hand was still in his he let go with a sheepish expression. “No, I’m from the States.” Castiel inclined his head to the side, but didn’t say anything to that. Otherworldly might have crossed his mind, but Dean pushed the thought down. Maybe he was dealing with a monster, but it was necessary to keep his cool. “You’ve got anywhere to be?”

“Not particularly,” Castiel answered and Dean grinned.

“So how about-“ Dean didn’t get to finish his sentence because his mobile phone started buzzing against his butt. He frowned but he had to pull it out to check. Of course Sam was calling. “Damn it.”

“Is something wrong?” Castiel asked, but his voice barely changed to hint that he could be worried or annoyed, or anything really.

“No, it’s just my brother. We’re on vacation together and I kinda ditched him,” Dean lied and when he looked back up Castiel actually had a very small smile on his lips that was gone almost as soon as Dean had processed how attractive it was. Dean looked down and sent Sam a text, hoping that Castiel didn’t see: **“TRENCH COAT. IF YOU COME OUT JUST AROUND THE CORNER.”** He sighed deeply, somehow he really would have liked to hang out with him a bit before they started hunting him, whether he was human or not.

“Can I get your number? I’d love to have a cup of coffee with you,” he said and Castiel lifted his eyebrow.

“As in a date?” Dean blinked in surprise but Castiel didn’t let on whether he liked the idea or not.

“Uh… Yeah, I guess so?” Dean stammered and lucky for him Castiel nodded. He did look pleased somehow.

“I would like to give you my number.” Dean added the contact info (CASTIEL but no last name) to his phone and then he put it back into his pant pocket. How likely was it that he’d actually get his date after spying on him like a creep? Good things rarely happened to Dean, but the small, almost shy smile on Castiel’s face made him want to hope.

“So I’ll see you around?” Castiel nodded.

“Good-bye, Dean,” he said, then without another word he turned around and left. Well, Swiss people were kinda weird.

“Are we going to follow him or what?” Sam’s voice sounded just next to Dean and he almost dropped his phone.

“Jesus Christ! Don’t do that!” Dean hissed and Sam widened his eyes at him, wanting an answer. Dean frowned, but then he wiped his hand over his face. “Yeah. Yeah okay!”

* * *

Whatever Dean’s hopes had been that Castiel was just an ordinary guy started to crumble the more time passed.

“Dude, it’s been an hour. Is he just going to keep sitting there?” The sun had already started setting by the time Sam had come out of the museum and now dusk was falling quickly around them. They had followed Castiel’s leisurely but purposeful walk that had led them away from the museum, past the Starbucks with the douchy fireplace and up a hill. The square they reached was big and quiet. Huge, regal looking houses framed the square and an imposing church threw its evening shade across the cobble stone. Dean had quickly torn his eyes away from a statue of a dude on a horse piercing a dragon (or maybe it was a basilisk?) to check what Castiel was doing. He dragged his hand across the smooth stone of a fountain that was next to the church, but he passed that and walked through a small scattering of trees to a bench. He bunched up his trench coat and sat down.

And he’d been sitting there ever since. He wasn’t meeting anyone, he didn’t check his watch, didn’t read. Just sat there, with his hands folded between his knees, and looked ahead. Sometimes he moved his head to look at the clouds passing the sky overhead and the leaves swaying in the wind. But that was about it. Dean felt ridiculous doing this stake out, because they were pretty much in plain view of everyone and had to pretend not to be stalkers somehow. Sure, they had their FBI badges tucked into their jackets, but Dean honestly doubted that they’d do much good even if Bobby at home would cover them.

“Maybe he fell asleep?” Sam suggested to which Dean could only snort. There were some light installations hanging in and between the trees, small glittering light bulbs becoming more pronounced as the darkness became heavier. But while Castiel looked at them once or twice, he didn’t seem to be here just for them. Dean let another ten minutes pass before he pulled out his phone. “What are you doing?” Sam asked and looked over Dean’s shoulder.

**“Looking forwards to coffee - Dean.”**

“You’re sending him a text?” Sam asked incredulously but soon after Dean had hit sent Castiel stirred. He reached out into his trench coat and looked at his phone. They saw a small smile show up on his face. They watched how he used both thumbs to slowly type out his answer and a moment later Dean’s phone vibrated softly.

**“I’m waiting for you. :)”**

“What monster uses emoticons?” Dean asked, trying to make the butterflies in his stomach settle down with vicious determination.

“I don’t know, Dean, but it’s still suspicious that he’s just sitting around,” Sam whispered.

“I mean he could be homeless?” Dean suggested and considering Sam’s ensuing silence he was contemplating that. Dean surely hoped that this wasn’t the case.

“Look, let’s just get this confrontation over with. It’s night, so at least the basilisk can’t kill us if he shows,” Sam suggested and Dean saw how he checked the wooden stake he had tugged into his jacket. Afterwards he pulled out a little mirror. Dean really didn’t want to do this, but Sam had that determined look on his face and before Dean could stop him they were moving out of their hiding place behind the church.

Their feet made a lot of noise on the gravel of the small park and Dean felt his stomach churning uncomfortably. Castiel didn’t look all that surprised when the two of them made their way over to him and Dean felt that wasn’t a good sign. Not at all. He saw Sam lift his hand towards Castiel, palm facing him. Castiel slowly rose to his feet. Dean widened his eyes because he had been sure that Sam had tried to constrain him with his powers. A look at Sam let him know that this had been Sam’s plan, but that it didn’t work. Sam narrowed his eyes, his expression concentrated but still Castiel cocked his head to the side. With a frustrated grunt Sam reached out to Dean who was lifted off his feet and landed on his butt in an instant.

“Dude!!” he shouted in annoyance. His brother was glaring at Castiel, his whole body rigid.

“My powers work. Nothing is interfering with them but they don’t make him budge an inch,” Sam hissed and Dean got up from the floor, brushing dust from his jeans. Dean turned his gaze away from Sam to look at Castiel, who had now put his hands into the pockets of his trench coat.

“I don’t know what he is, but he’s definitely some kind of monster,” Sam concluded. Dean wasn’t sure what this knowledge made him feel. Something unpleasant had taken hold of him, making his heart beat quickly and something in his chest hurt. He was disappointed and angry.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel said gently, then he turned his eyes on Sam. “And Sam.” He narrowed his eyes slightly, studying them both. “I knew you’d come for me eventually, though you were hiding for a long time.”

“Yeah, why’s that? Have you been waiting for us to come just so you could eat us?” Sam snapped, much more hostile than Dean could bring himself to be. He wasn’t sure what exactly he should be doing here. Stabbing? Talking? Certainly getting information was a good thing but Sam was in one of his anxious, trigger-happy moods if the twitching of his fingers was anything to go by. But Sam, just as Dean, knew that stabbing their way through a bunch of demons and monsters hadn’t gotten them any closer to getting Dean out of his deal.

“No,” Castiel said. “I felt you come here. You brought… Something foreign to this city. Something powerful and unusual… I wasn’t sure what it was or where it came from before.” Castiel took a step towards them, squinting his eyes and suddenly Dean found himself the focus of blue eyes. Something was whispering in his ears and he felt a tiny vibration in his very core. He couldn’t look away from Castiel, as if he was under his spell. He felt sweat bead at his hairline and still Castiel stared as if he could read his soul like an open book. And then the spell was broken when he lowered his eyes. They swept towards Sam instead and Dean could breathe again. He took a moment to realize that Sam was just as stiff as before and that his hands were clenching at his sides. But then Castiel made a small sound in the back of his throat, appearing thoughtful.

“You are both uniquely marked,” he summarized and Dean wondered what the hell that meant. Sure, every demon knew that hell had called dibs on the Winchesters but it was odd to see a foreign monster have a similar, knowing reaction.

“So what are you anyway?” Dean asked but before he could stop him, Sam lifted the mirror and held it out to Castiel. Dean gave a start and cursed, but when after a moment Castiel merely blinked at his reflection Sam slowly lowered his arm again.

“Sam! For fuck’s sake! Are you totally off your rocker now?! That could have killed him! And who would have told us about what we need to know then?!” Sam flinched and looked at Dean guiltily.

“Why would a mirror kill me?” Castiel asked with a frown.

“You’re a basilisk, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been the guardian of this town for various centuries now,” Castiel answered simply and sat back down on the bench. He didn’t seem threatening at all, beside the fact that Sam’s power – which could kill the strongest demons by now – didn’t even move a strand of Castiel’s hair. “And it seems you either want something from me or you want to kill me. Possibly both.” He didn’t seem particularly worried by this and Dean wondered if this Great Beast was so powerful that it knew that nothing the Winchesters had on them could harm it. Dean groaned.

“Just my luck,” he muttered and he saw Castiel look at him while Sam glared in annoyance. “You did fake interest in me pretty well.”

“Did I? It doesn’t seem like yours was genuine after all,” he chastised and Dean didn’t quite know why but he did feel slightly embarrassed to hear it. “And I am actually interested in you. You’re very good-looking and you seem kind.”

“Well, for a monster he does know how to flirt,” Sam teased despite his doom and gloom expression and Dean shot him a withering look.

“Okay. You’ve seen us. Now what?” Dean demanded and Castiel frowned at the openly hostile tone. “You’re going to kill us?”

“Why should I?” Castiel asked.

“So you’re just going to… what? Watch us? You do know what we’ve been hunting you!”

“Yes, but I’m not sure what you want with me,” Castiel told them.

“We need one of your eggs.” That did get Castiel to widen his eyes and Dean wondered if Sam might not have used a bit of a more careful approach. “We know that basilisk eggs have magical abilities and we need one. If you give us one we’ll get out of your hair in no time.”

“Why?” Castiel asked. “Why do you need a basilisk egg?”

“Dude,” Dean hissed before Sam could answer. He pushed his hand against Sam’s arm to catch his brother’s full attention. “Look at him. He doesn’t even look like we thought a basilisk should look! Do you really think something human shaped lays eggs?!” Dean could see how Sam deflated once the words sunk in. He looked from Dean to Castiel and back to Dean. After a while he put his hand over his face. “It wouldn’t be the first thing the documents got wrong. You used a mirror on him and he’s perfectly healthy. Maybe basilisk eggs don’t even exist.”

“What do you need basilisk eggs for?” Castiel asked again.

“None of your goddamn business,” Dean snapped, too stressed to even try to be civil. The eggs had been the one thing they had set their hopes on. Suddenly the church bell boomed and Dean flinched. Once he did look to Castiel he found a dark, put off expression on his face. The basilisk rose to his feet and then his posture shifted slightly, his head leaning forward and his shoulders pushing back. Before Dean knew it Sam had pushed him behind himself and had the wooden stake out, but with a gust of wind Castiel disappeared into thin air. Both of the Winchester looked around, trying to see where he went, but apparently he had vanished. Sam let the wooden stake drop and cursed.

“I think you pissed him off,” he said weakly and Dean… Dean laughed humorlessly.


	3. Chapter 3

They might as well pack their stuff and head home. At least giving up and going home was what Dean was trying to do once they reported back to Bobby. Bobby hadn’t known what to tell them, but a gruff “I’m sorry, boy” was uttered and that had hurt more than the dread seeping into Dean’s bones.

“Just… don’t give up yet, Dean. Castiel is still around. And I’m still waiting for Bela to get back to me. I’m sure that if basilisk eggs exist, she can find one for you.” Dean merely shook his head. “Come on, just sit tight.”

“Fine. I’m going for a walk,” Dean said with a snort. Sam could not stop him, so he didn’t try. Dean grabbed the laptop bag and then he left the house. It was raining slightly, but it was more like a light spray carried by the wind than anything else. Dean merely zipped up his jacket and started to walk towards the town center. He had nowhere in particular to be. Maybe he’d grab himself a burger somewhere or a cup of coffee. Maybe both. He stopped walking when his phone vibrated. He ducked under the small glass shelter at the tram stop and pulled it out.

**“Do you want a cup of coffee?”** It read, complete with an emoticon of a cup of coffee and a signature: Castiel. Dean was still staring at it when another message came in. **“There’s a small coffee shop on Spalenberg.”**

**“The pseudo bar one?”** Dean texted back.

**“No, not that far. Opposite the alcove with the fountain.”** Dean wasn’t sure what to say, but since Dean only had to follow the street and the small alley up the hill he decided to just risk it. Sam would surely throw a tantrum when he heard about it and rightly so. It was never ever a good idea to meet with a monster on his own, behind his brother’s back. Especially not when there was some sort of sexual attraction involved. But Sam was the one who didn’t want him to give up on this case yet and meeting with the monster was not giving up. So he walked up the hill, taking a different path now. He found the coffee shop with little difficulty. It had big glass windows and didn’t look uninviting even though it was inconspicuous. When Dean pushed the door open he found Castiel sitting in the corner, on a bench piled high with cushions. Dean debated sending Sam a message in case Castiel would decide to eat him after all but then Castiel looked up, his eyes clear blue even at a distance. Dean let his phone slip back into his pocket and he pushed his way into the café. He took a quick look around. It was small with only a couple of tables and the fake worn down look of the place made Dean want to roll his eyes. Figures. Maybe that’s how all coffee shops close to an university campus had to look like. He was greeted by the woman behind the bar and then sat down on the bench diagonally across from Castiel, accidentally making their knees bump.

“Hey. Didn’t think to see you again,” Dean aimed for a casual tone and Castiel’s mouth quirked up into a small smile. “So. Uh…”

“Wüsstr scho was dir wänd?” The lull in their conversation was interrupted by the waitress. Castiel didn’t lose a beat to order.

„E Schwarztee.” It was really odd to hear Castiel’s flawless English switch into the harsher tones of Swiss German, but it somehow fitted his deep voice well. The woman had to clear her throat for Dean to snap out of his thoughts and he looked up at her in surprise, before he remembered why she was here. He looked down at the menu, flipping through it.

“Nur einen Kaffee, bitte,” he mumbled, guessing from Castiel’s answer that she had asked what he wanted to drink and then she was gone with a smile.

“Somehow it surprises me that your German is so impeccable. Your brother doesn’t seem to understand anything, neither does he seem to know that you do.” Castiel commented and Dean felt that familiar mix between pride and embarrassment.

“Dude, I don’t understand a fraction of what I’m hearing around me. And German is not a bad skill to have if you’re a hunter. Sure, for a lot of texts there are translation, but I once came across a bound journal on witch trials and they were all in German,” he explained and Castiel propped his chin up on his folded palms, elbows on the table. He was leaning slightly across the corner, closer to Dean. He wasn’t sure if he should be leaning back, but somehow he didn’t think it wise or necessary.

“And so you set out to learn it?” Dean shrugged.

“Had nothing to do but chase down useful stuff. And when there is no useful stuff you can either hustle pool, get drunk or try to acquire the skills to read the stuff you’ve got in your library. And let me tell you, lots of is still untranslated,” Dean explained but after Castiel nodded with genuine interest on his face, Dean decided that this was too weird and he had said too much. This was none of the monster’s business, not even if the monster was wearing a handsome face with impossibly captivating eyes.

Their drinks were put in front of them and it crossed Dean’s mind that he was actually having a date with a monster.

He was dying, so yes, he was taking more liberties than he had allowed himself before, like going on a date with a guy. But going on a date with a monster might be stretching it, even for a Winchester with a clock ticking away his life.

He groaned at the ridiculousness of the situation, but pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of Castiel with his cup of tea pressed to his lips. Castiel only raised his eyebrow but didn’t protest. When Dean checked the phone he fully expected the pic to be distorted in some way, like pictures of monsters usually were. But there he was, a normal picture of his too messy hair and too blue eyes. Looking painfully human. Dean almost deleted it because something about it, the casual expression, the naturalness of the monstrosity wrapped in a disarmingly human body disturbed him. It brought a low fire of anxiety to Dean’s stomach. But in the end he sent it forwards to Charlie.

**“Date?”** he texted and sent it off without a second thought. Because this was a date. _Was_ it a date?

“Is this a date?” Dean asked and Castiel tilted his head to the side. “I mean after yesterday I assumed you’d try to hunt me down.”

“I would assume that this is a date, though I also want to know the answer to my question. Maybe you’re more amendable to an answer now that you’re no longer so shocked.” Castiel looked down at the wooden table. “Or that your brother no longer wants to kill me. A wooden stake wouldn’t work, by the way. I’m not a pagan god.” Dean snorted because this was certainly not the kind of conversation normal people had on a date. Not that Dean had much experience to go on. He was more of a one-night stand kinda guy. His phone vibrated and he quickly checked to see Charlie’s answer.

**“I thought you were over there to work, Dean?? But well done on getting a hottie as your first ever date with a guy! Don’t forget to use condoms and lube!”** He rolled his eyes and put the phone away again.

“Why do you need basilisk eggs, Dean?” Dean tensed at that, some of the earlier levity evaporating in a blink.

“Do they even exist?”

“They exist. Why do you need them?” It seemed like Castiel wasn’t going to let it go before he had an answer. But just knowing that the eggs did exist after all made Dean glad that he hadn’t forced Sam to catch the next flight back to the US.

“We’re working a case and we need to break a curse,” Dean told him. There was no way that he would tell his entire story to a stranger, least of all a monster.

“Hm,” was all that Castiel said for a while. “There are no fresh eggs in the nest.” Dean had no idea why he specified fresh eggs, maybe it was what was needed to undo curses. He wasn’t sure if what Castiel was telling him was bad news.

“So can you just… lay one? Or do you have a lady friend who does?” Dean dared to ask and Castiel actually huffed a laugh at that.

“That’s not how it works,” he said and Dean raised both eyebrows, silently inviting him to go on but Castiel wouldn’t say more. Dean accepted this for all of three minutes and then he shook his head.

“Look, Castiel. I really need that thing, okay? So tell me your price or whatever else it is that you want me to do to get it,” he pressed and Castiel slowly inclined his head to the side, his otherworldly look not betraying what he was thinking.

“Why do you think I have what you need?” he prompted and Dean narrowed his eyes. He shifted forwards slightly, hands pressed together.

“Because I’m still here. You didn’t turn me into a pretty new statue and you sought my presence. You want something from me,” Dean said and for a split second there was something calculating in the monster’s eyes. Dean didn’t like it at all. Of course there would be something in the back of Castiel’s head. He couldn’t forget that he was a Great Beast, the king of his species.

“I want to understand,” he said eventually when Dean had already wondered if Castiel was the sleazy kind of creature that would want to be paid in bodies, or if he liked souls, or just blood spill.

“What?” Dean asked, taken aback by the vague answer. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“Simply what I said. You and your brother are wrapped up in something monumental that might change the balance of souls.” Dean opened his mouth but Castiel made him shut up again with a warning look. “I’m a guardian. I need to make sure that my people are protected.” Dean remained silent but in the end he lifted his hands.

“I’m just a hunter.”

“With a curse,” Castiel added sharply and Dean picked up his coffee, directing his irritated glare at its surface. Dean hated it when monsters knew more about him than he wanted them to know. Castiel had no business snooping around Dean’s stuff. There was no way that he’d risk telling Castiel what was about to go down in May if he couldn’t get this damn contract broken. He couldn’t know which side Castiel would take, if he would try to make sure it would come to pass like arranged, or if he would try to harm Sam or just generally cause them more trouble than necessary. Damn, Dean should just have stayed clear off him. Monsters were dangerous, especially if they held the key to his possible release.

“This date isn’t going the way either of us hoped it would,” Dean muttered darkly, humorlessly as an attempt to divert the topic. Castiel lifted his chin off the back of his hands and sat back against the wall, looking unperturbed.

“Since this is my first date I have nothing to compare it with, but I’ve been enjoying myself so far,” Castiel said and Dean blinked at him in surprise.

“Your first date? You must be hundreds of years old,” he said and Castiel nodded without letting Dean know how old he actually was. “Dude, that’s almost sad.”

“I simply think that you’re special,” Castiel replied to that and then he pulled a wallet out of his trench coat. It was shockingly girly. A thing almost as big as a purse, garishly yellow with black stripes and white frills. And filled to bursting with bills. He pulled out twenty francs and put them on the table. Dean really had no idea how to react to that, but soon Castiel had paid for their drinks und they were standing in the still slightly too chilly afternoon.

“You will still be here I trust?” Castiel asked and Dean watched how his delicate looking hands disappeared in the deep pockets of his trench coat. Dean thought about saying no just to get the basilisk out of his hair, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Somehow there was something intriguing about him.

“Until I get that fucking egg or die trying,” Dean grumbled. Literally. He would die if he couldn’t get that egg and he really didn’t want to die here. Back in the bunker he could at least try to barricade himself in. He knew that never worked, but at least it would be home. An uncomfortable weight settled on Dean’s chest and he couldn’t bring himself to continue grousing at Castiel. He was tired all of a sudden. He lifted his hand and rubbed it over his face.

A gentle touch to his arm made him look up, finding concern on Castiel’s face.

“Dean-“

“Well, do you want a kiss on your first date?” Dean cut him off, his voice louder and more strained than he had intended it to sound. Castiel’s hand on his arm didn’t drop and he seemed to be totally unfazed by Dean’s mood. Dean didn’t wait for an answer but leant in close, bridging the distance until he could press his lips to Castiel’s. They were warm and soft, like a human’s. Dean drew back after only a moment, keeping his eyes to the ground. He took one step back and rubbed his fingers against his mouth. He didn’t want to look at him. He didn’t even know what had brought him to kiss him.

“Thank you for this rendez-vous,” he heard Castiel say.

“Yeah,” Dean said, “See you around, I guess.”

“Yes.” Stubbornly looking at the ground he waited until he heard steps, but instead he heard a soft flutter of wings and felt a light wind ruffling his hair. When he finally turned to look Castiel was gone. Dean stared at the empty space and then he lifted his head with a sigh. His eyes swept over the street, along the façade of the red building opposite him and into the dull blue sky.

“Great.”

* * *

Invisible teeth snapped at him. He could feel the foul sulfurous breath on his vulnerable feet. He could hear the clicking of fangs, the snarls. The floor he lay on trembled under their mighty paws, claws dragging deep grooves into the wood.

Sam was sitting outside of the circle the claws were drawing. A crown of thorns rested on his head.

“Midnight,” he said, his voice booming like thunder and his eyes flashing yellow under his lashes. “Time to wake.”

* * *

“You okay in there?” Dean could hear the banging of Sam’s hand against the bathroom door. Dean groaned but didn’t answer. He was still bent over the sink, his arms shaking and heart beating too quickly. “Dean if you don’t answer I’m going to open the door. With my mind!”

“Fuck you,” was all Dean managed but it was enough to get Sam to sniff in offense. Dean tried to breathe through the panic, splashing water against his face.

“They’re getting worse?” Sam’s voice sounded muffled now, gentle and scared. Dean hated it. He hated that Sam was worried about him, that Sam didn’t even have time to be scared about his own fate because Dean was what felt like just another nightmare away from breaking. Dean didn’t bother replying. He looked up into the tiny mirror above the sink. His face was pale, the skin under his eyes dark and bruised. He frowned and then turned away to go out of the bathroom. Sam was of course right there, his eyes full of worry. Dean brushed him off before he could say anything. His entire body felt sluggish as he pulled on his socks and pants.

“Bela sent me a list of things she found in auctions but nothing looks like a basilisk egg to her. She’s digging into the black market now,” Sam explained while Dean fought the temptation to just let himself fall back into bed. “I’m sure she’ll find something.”

“Yeah…,” was all Dean managed to say. Sam was sitting at the table, drumming his hand on the wooden surface.

“Maybe we should try trapping Castiel. He must know something.”

“Yeah but he’s not spilling,” Dean grumbled and fetched his mobile phone off the floor. There was an unread message. When he opened it he found it to be a picture of a Starbucks cup with the name Castiel totally misspelled. He frowned at the picture, seeing that it had been sent merely ten minutes ago and judged from the background it was the Starbucks close by.

**“Basilisks drink fancy Starbucks frappucinos, ‘Kassielle’?”** Dean texted back, then he pulled on his shoes.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked, “you haven’t had coffee yet!”

**“On occasion,”** was the answer and Dean was out of the door. This time Sam was following though, still combing his fingers through his unruly hair.

“I think I know where our monster is right now,” Dean explained while walking towards the coffee shop at a brisk pace. Sam didn’t question it, but he was certainly uneasy judged by the look on his face. “You’re not complaining?”

“I think it’s stupid to face him without any protection, but he hasn’t killed us yet and we need answers. So I doubt we have much of a choice,” Sam said, his voice tense. Dean made a surprised noise, but then merely shrugged and continued on his way. He knew that Sam was glaring at the back of his head.

“Was there anything on a basilisk being able to ensnare people?” he finally asked and Dean almost faltered in his steps. He avoided tripping over his own feet and sent a dubious look over his shoulder. Sam’s face was pulled into a troubled frown. “I mean I get it. He’s apparently your type, but Dean… You seem to throw all caution to the wind.”

“I just want answers,” Dean grit out, unsure why he felt embarrassed by Sam’s observation. After the initial shock had passed however, doubt started to creep into Dean. “I mean… I haven’t seen anything about that anywhere.”

“Well, no. It’s not part of the lore but that doesn’t have to mean anything. Castiel doesn’t seem to have this Medusa thing going for him either and the mirror did nothing,” Sam argued, “besides, most of the stuff I found was in German, which we can’t read.” Dean made a grimace at that, but since he was facing away from Sam his brother couldn’t see it.

“So you think he’s like a siren?”

“That or you’re just helpless around guys you fancy,” Sam said and Dean could hear the amused lift to Sam’s voice. “Monster or not.”

“Hey, you have no moral high ground on this,” Dean argued, half turning around to point an accusing finger at Sam. His brother lifted his hands, with a look of mock innocence on his face. “That thing with Ruby, man?”

“You’re going to let me hear that for the rest of eternity, won’t you?” Sam huffed but there was no strength behind it. It’s been too many years for them to still feel the razor sharp pain of that particular time in both of their lives.

“If we fail here you’ll only have to listen to it until May,” Dean tried to joke but neither he nor Sam found it particularly funny.

“So you’ll stop once we’re down there?” Dean tensed, but before he could start arguing about that the automatic glass doors of Starbucks were in front of them. He turned towards Sam, but his brother already pushed past him to queue. Dean glared at him but the unruly mop of hair didn’t turn around to search for his eyes anymore. So Dean shook his head and went down the stairs.

Finding Castiel was easy. He was sitting in the armchairs where Dean had sat a couple of weeks ago, holding a white cup in his hand now and reading a book. It was so odd that Dean momentarily faltered at the bottom of the stairs. Monsters, if they were clever, blended in with humans. As a hunter, he knew that well enough – he knew that the only monsters that they hunted were those that didn’t know how to blend in. Most hunters only noticed the bastards that messed up and left a trail.

There must be millions of beings like Castiel around, supernatural things that looked inconspicuous with their rumpled trench coat and ruffled hair. And blue eyes that were currently trained on Dean. The corners of the basilisk’s mouth lifted into a small smile and he waved at Dean. Sam’s previous warning still rang in his head. What if that odd beating of Dean’s heart was some sort of lure? What if Castiel was just artfully trying to get into his pants? He knew that he shouldn’t trust him – and he _didn’t_ trust him – but he also knew that he needed him. That put Dean into a vulnerable spot that he abhorred with all of his being. But Castiel was so… disarmingly normal and adorable, that Dean had a hard time stopping himself from hoping. For what exactly he wasn’t sure.

The contrast of being wary and really wanting to trust him almost made Dean nauseous.

“Hey,” Dean said, “here I am again.”

“You’re not working today?” Castiel asked and Dean rolled his eyes before he glared at him.

“I am. _You’re_ the case,” he hissed and Castiel beamed at him from over the rim of the coffee cup. It was off-putting. “Why the hell are you grinning like that?”

“It’s been a while since anyone was interested in me. The last time I had a lengthy conversation with someone was in the 18th century,” Castiel explained and then he looked up. Dean followed his line of sight and saw Sam coming down the stairs with a tray. His brother’s step slowed down when he noticed Castiel, but then he straightened his shoulders and marched towards them. He took the seat opposite Dean, so that Castiel was flanked on both sides by one of them. Dean was sure he could just teleport away if he wanted to, but it still felt normal to do it like this. Like Sam and Dean against whatever adversity came their way. It was familiar and it was at least something stable.

“What’s your deal?” Sam asked and Castiel looked towards him. “Why are you here? Are you going to help us are you just here to mock us?”

“I have no intention of mocking you. But I don’t know if I can or should help you,” Castiel replied and calmly turned his head away from Sam to look at Dean. Dean faltered under that intense gaze and looked down into the coffee that Sam had put in front of him. “Not if I don’t know why I’m supposed to help you.”

“Because Dean-“

“I told you. There’s a curse and we want that gone,” he said. “That’s simple enough, isn’t it?” Out of the corner of his eyes he could see Sam shifting in his seat.

“It’s not. I have no reason to give you anything, Dean. Even if I like you there’s a chance you might do something bad with a basilisk egg.” Before Dean could argue Castiel continued. “I already told you that I need to understand. You might have good intentions but you and Sam seem to be ensnared in a wide net and I cannot see into its darkest corners. And until I can decide if your cause is worthy of support I will not support you.” Dean clenched his hands into fists, his knuckles hurting with the strain.

“So… if we tell you what we need it for you’ll hand it over?” Sam asked and Dean stared at his brother in disbelief.

“Sam,” he hissed warningly. Sam looked at him with wide eyes, slowly lifting his shoulders. Dean knew what Sam was thinking: “why not give it a shot? Why not grasp at the straws held out by a beast?”

“If you are worthy.” That word made Dean tense even further, a tight ball of shame and doubt collecting in his stomach and making him feel cold all over.

_Worthy_. Him!

“So… A story for the magical object we need?” Dean snorted and glared at Castiel. “Yeah, no thanks.”

“Not a story. What I want to hear from you is the truth. Simple as that. That you crossed the ocean to search for this obscure object already tells me that it’s important. And I understand that there’s a certain…” Castiel stopped and looked Dean up and down, probably doing some creepy mind x-ray on him. “Desperation,” he finally added. “But humans are dangerous. Humans do things that threaten the balance of the world all the time. Someone opens a gate in Asia and a destructive earthquake will shake the foundations of my city.”

“Was that what happened?” Sam spoke up and Dean turned to look at him in confusion. Castiel gazed at him with curiosity in his eyes. “In 1356, when the earthquake destroyed most of this city.”

“Indeed. But I assume you’re familiar with the global consequences of supernatural activity,” Castiel replied, “and whatever you two are involved in will have dire consequences.”

“Only if we don’t get that egg,” Sam explained when Dean kept silent, sitting back in his chair with his arms over his chest. “If we can stop… the _curse_ from happening then everything stays like it is today. So please…”

“What is the nature of the curse?”

“That’s not something you need to know,” Dean commented dryly and saw that Castiel’s neutral look didn’t yet change into irritation. “Besides you said that there is no egg in the nest, so it’s not like you can actually help.”

“I didn’t say that I was unable to get one,” Castiel told him. Dean didn’t get the chance to answer because Sam lifted his hands.

“Just, wait, wait!” he called. He turned around in his seat to glare at Dean. “When the hell did you two talk?”

“Dean and I were on a date yesterday,” Castiel helpfully provided and Dean groaned, covering his face with his palm so that he didn’t have to see Sam’s stupid expression.

“Oh, so yeah. Okay. Nice,” Sam babbled, sounding very unimpressed with Dean. Dean heard him shift around in his seat again, but he liked hiding behind his palm. “And you can get us an egg. If you think our cause is just.” That got Dean to act, reaching out to grab Sam’s arm, probably harder than he had to. His brother winced but turned his attention away from Castiel.

“We’re not doing this, Sam. We’re not sharing our crap with a monster!” Castiel didn’t react to that, sitting back and letting them argue it out.

“Why not?! Why! Dean this is why we’re here!” Sam hissed, his eyes stormy and Castiel’s tea cup wobbled with the force of Sam’s agitation. The basilisk merely reached out and put his finger on the rim. It stopped shaking at once. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to go to hell!” That shut Dean up instantly and Sam closed his mouth with a guilty expression. But there was still determination in his expression and when Dean only stared at him, Sam turned back to face Castiel.

“Dean made a demon deal.” Castiel’s face was painfully neutral when Dean dared to look. Apparently it unnerved Sam as much as it did Dean. “But there was nothing selfish about it! I died. He sold his soul to save me.”

“Humans die, that’s the course of life,” Castiel said and Dean slammed his fist onto the armrest. There was no satisfaction to the slam as his hand sunk into the fabric, but Castiel still looked at him.

“Fuck you! You son of bitches know nothing about human life! You don’t care about anything! It’s things like you that got Sam and me into this mess in the first place!” A small frown appeared between Castiel’s eyebrows. It was clear that Castiel wasn’t thrilled about what Dean was saying. “So I don’t fucking care if you think I’m not worthy. I know I deserve to go to hell!”

“Dean!”

“But Sam didn’t deserve to be killed due to some messed up demonic scheming! Nobody deserves to be a victim of someone else’s fucked up plans!” And that was, Dean knew, all he was going to say on this. Castiel studied him, but after a moment he leant back in his chair, his long, beautiful fingers pressed to his mouth.

“Look…,” Sam started, sounding about just as tired as Dean felt. “We know you have no reason to help us… But please… If there’s any chance that you _can_ help us. Please.”

“A basilisk egg might not help you,” Castiel said slowly, almost cautiously. Sam didn’t even seem to breathe. “I must think about this.” And in the blink of an eye he was gone.

“Great…,” Dean mumbled and Sam made a wounded noise. Dashed hopes weren’t really new but Dean was tired of it. So tired.


	4. Chapter 4

A week passed sluggishly. Dean and Sam weren’t really getting any further without Castiel’s help. Dean’s nightmares continued to happen almost nightly and it was starting to wear him down. He still had time until his ten years were up, but he felt like the maws of hell were already closing around his ribs, squeezing just hard enough to make it difficult to breathe and get through another day.

They continued researching though because nobody really wanted to give up yet. They were too stubborn for that. Bela kept them frequently updated on her foray into the black market.

“I hate that you’re doing this,” Dean muttered into his cell phone. His research has led him to the building that housed the main university library. There was a small botanical garden arranged between the library and one of the university buildings. It was quiet enough for Dean to try to relax a bit. “It was hard to get you out of that business. You’re just going to attract attention to yourself.”

_“So what? I’m good at what I do,”_ Bela replied, her voice sounding self-assured as always.

“Yeah, I know that.”

_“And I sure miss getting millions of pounds for a good deal,”_ she said in a mock wistful tone. “ _I keep my nose clean, Dean. So far I haven’t left a single trail that I or Charlie couldn’t remove,”_ she assured him.

“Hm,” was all Dean said and he lifted his head to the sky, blinking lazily. It was overcast and Sam had insisted that he should take an umbrella with him. Dean didn’t do umbrellas even though he felt that he would regret it soon enough.

_“I have found a vendor that claims to sell basilisk eggs and I’m tracking him down at the moment,”_ Bela continued and Dean straightened. _“I know you said that it might not work, but how reliable is your source anyway?”_

“It’s a supernatural source,” Dean answered to which he got the expected snort. “I don’t trust him to tell the truth, but it’s not like we know what to do with the egg anyway… Maybe those things just don’t work on removing demon contracts.”

_“But we do know that demon contracts can be dissolved!”_ Bela argued hotly, probably having picked up on the weariness in his voice. Dean sighed and lifted his free hand to rub his face. He hadn’t shaved in a while and the stubble scratched his palm. When Bela spoke again her voice was much softer. _“You managed to free me from my deal and I know that in the ten years you’ve been searching for a way out you’ve released others from their fate in hell.”_

“Can’t say if all of them deserved it,” Dean said glumly and he could almost imagine Bela rolling her eyes in annoyance. “But yeah. I know. But I’ve carved a bloody trail through the ranks of crossroad demons and nobody was high up enough on the food chain to do anything about my contract. I thought killing Lilith would get us somewhere, but of course she died without giving us the answers we needed.” He chuckled darkly. “I guess hell just can’t wait to get its claws on me and use me like a worm on a hook to dangle in front of Sam.”

_“Sam’s still adamant about following you to hell?”_ Dean covered his eyes with his palm, resting his elbows on his knees. _“I take your silence as a yes…”_

“I mean I get it. I would do the same if Sam was going to hell…,” he muttered. He knew Bela had heard, but she didn’t need to give an answer. Because when Sam had died, Dean had not even hesitated to sell his soul to get him back. Dean knew now that his inability to let Sam go had set something big in motion that neither of them knew how to stop. They could just try to do damage control for as long as possible.

_“Well, maybe you’ll just have to try again. There’s a guy I know. The person I sold your colt to for help before you agreed to assist me?”_

“Yeah, still sore about that,” Dean grumbled, but without real heat behind it. He’d rather toss the colt away than know that Bela was down in hell.

_“Yes, yes. But maybe he’s still around for questioning. I don’t know if he’s somebody in hell, but he certainly had a knack for getting good objects. Maybe he knows who has your contract and maybe he’d like a basilisk egg enough to tear the contract apart.”_

“Hm… I suppose we have nothing to lose,” Dean said. His fingers were almost itching at the idea of getting face to face with a demon again. Maybe it was another dead end, but at least it was better than waiting and moping and sending Castiel sad emoticons (or thinking about it, rather. Dean hadn’t stooped that low. But after two cups of caramel frappuccinos he has seriously considered it).

_“Great. His name is Crowley. I’d summon him myself because he already knows me, but I’ll have to dig deep to get that egg for you, fake or not.”_

“Don’t worry about that, we can handle one demon,” Dean assured her, “thanks a lot, Bela.”

_“It’s always a pleasure,”_ she said and after a short good-bye they hung up.

So… Crowley then.

Dean thought about going straight to Sam so that they could gather ingredients for a demon summoning or at least find a crossroad somewhere, but then the occasional dripping of rain became a veritable downpour. Dean cursed and looked around for a place to stand under until it passed. He noticed the domed conservatory close by and steered towards it. He pulled open the glass door and with a dull thud he shut out the chilly wind and the sound of rain.

Inside it was humid and wet, the splattering of rain on the glass roof a distant sound easily lost among the slow dripping of water inside and the occasional soft hiss of mist being sprayed at the plants. Dean breathed in the humid air and the earthy fragrance. He looked through the plants, almost all of them various shades of green until he caught a glimpse of something tan.

And there he was, hands in the pockets of his trench coat, greenery raising around him like huge wings.

“Castiel,” Dean said, trying to keep his voice steady and overcoming his surprise. The basilisk inclined his head towards him, but otherwise he didn’t speak. “You’re here because of me?”

“No. I live close by and like you I just looked for shelter from the storm,” he said calmly. Dean’s eyes slipped from his neutral face to the flowers around, expecting them to shrivel up any moment now. But they didn’t. Everything was still impossibly green.

“Huh… I suppose none of the lore is true,” he said and that got Castiel to raise an eyebrow in confusion. Dean touched the plants next to his hip. “You’re supposed to shrivel up everything wherever you go.”

“Am I? That seems to be a waste,” Castiel commented, his voice sounding curious. Dean shrugged and for a moment there was nothing but the sound of rain and the dripping of water between them. Dean wasn’t sure what to make of Castiel’s presence and he didn’t dare to ask him for his help, afraid that he would deny him. Actually he was sure that Castiel would deny him but he didn’t want to hear that he was worthless. It was nothing new, he had heard it from countless sources, but somehow he felt that he would not be able to laugh away Castiel’s judgement. Maybe because he was one of the only people who could possible help him. Other than this Crowley dude, but somehow a monster seemed preferable to a demon.

“So… Uh you wanna grab a coffee or are we just going to stare at each other?” Dean asked, feeling how the humidity was starting to bead on his forehead and clinging to him. It started to feel suffocating. Too hot, too wet and with a monster staring him down.

“Of course…” Castiel agreed and Dean was glad to push the door open again even if it meant stepping out into the rain. Castiel however lifted an umbrella. Dean blinked up on the dark shape above him with a disarming bee pattern on it. “A basilisk with a bee umbrella, really.” Dean said with an unimpressed snort. Castiel followed his gaze up.

“I like bees,” was the only thing Castiel said, but when Dean snatched the umbrella from him so that he could hold it over their heads instead he didn’t complain.

Castiel led the way, out of the botanical garden. They passed a small park, the cobbled street leading to a small round square framed by benches. A couple of students were standing or sitting on the stone steps of the building to the right, sheltered from the rain. None of them reacted to them but of course, none of them knew that they were a hunter and a basilisk. They continued on and Dean recognized the street but in the end Castiel didn’t guide him to one of the coffee shops but to the street behind it. They passed another alcove with a fountain built into it (people in this city seemed to like this sort of thing) and soon afterwards Castiel turned towards a house. While Castiel fiddled with his keys and Dean told himself not to panic to be invited into the house of a monster, he noticed a dull noise. He stepped away from Castiel and there was that long, narrow ally with its endless flight of stairs and the wooden sign screeching on its hinges as it moved in the wind. He frowned, being uncomfortably reminded of his dreams.

“Dean?” he turned away from the mouth of the alley. Castiel was getting slightly drenched by the rain, holding the door open for Dean. Dean noticed that he still had the umbrella and hurried back to him. Castiel disappeared into a dimly lit entrance hall and Dean was rooted to the spot with indecision.

“If you feel uncomfortable coming up you don’t have to,” Castiel told him. Dean shook his head and followed him. Yes, he was uncomfortable and he felt like either walking into a trap or into some kind of nasty situation. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. Castiel apparently had something to tell him, otherwise he wouldn’t have shown himself, seeking shelter be damned. So he followed him.

Once the door closed Dean noticed that he was in a clean and generous entrance hall with a couple of mail boxes and closed doors. Castiel took the wide stairs and Dean followed him wordlessly until Castiel led him to a door. He opened it and shot Dean a look before he slipped inside. Dean followed without thinking too much.

“Hang up your jacket if you want,” Castiel said and pulled the trench coat off to hang it on a hook attached to the wall. Dean followed suit, all the while looking around. The entrance was a small room with an arched doorway showing into a bright living room and a corridor leading to the side. The floors were wood, well-worn and creaking under his feet. The walls white and without any decoration. Everything looked pretty nondescript but none of the furniture seemed to match exactly. Dean noticed an abundance of plants, taking up most of the space that regular people filled with DVDs or picture frames or knick-knacks. Also, the sofa facing the window was piled high with pillows and blankets, some more lying on the floor. There clearly was no shortage of comfortable places to sit on. Castiel came out of what Dean assumed to be the kitchen with a wooden tray carrying two cups, milk, sugar and a box of what Dean guessed to be cookies.

“Your place doesn’t exactly look like a basilisk lair,” Dean commented when Castiel handed him a cup of coffee. The cups too were mismatched. “But then again you don’t exactly look like a basilisk.”

“Maybe, but it’s my home anyway. It’s changed over the centuries though. For a long time I’ve had my nest in the old gate tower but it’s been opened for tourists so that became uncomfortable. It was easier to get a house,” Castiel explained and poured sugar into his coffee.

“How long have you been here anyway?”

“Since about the 15th century I suppose.” Dean whistled and then he took a sip of his coffee. He didn’t feel like breaking the comfortable silence between them and even though Castiel was probably too much in Dean’s personal space, he didn’t feel like the monster made any demands on him. If Dean was being honest with himself, he had resigned himself to the possibility that in exchange for his help Castiel would demand something sexual from Dean. Nothing ever came for free in the realm of the supernatural. There was no charity, merely an exchange of goods. He had no doubts that a basilisk was the same. If Great Beasts were anything like pagan gods he would state his demands soon enough.

Dean looked at the side of Castiel’s face, observing the long lashes and the bright eyes, the slightly red cheeks and the pink lips. Then his gaze dropped to the fingers that held on to the cup. They looked gentle and delicate, not the fingers of someone who would tear Dean apart the first chance he got.

“And he already asked for something,” Dean reminded himself and averted his gaze to look out over the roof tops glistening with rain. “He wanted my story.”

But Castiel asked no questions, he seemed content to drink his tea and enjoy the silence. Dean was almost startled by the vibration of his phone. He pulled it out and notice that it was Sam.

“I have to get that,” he said and Castiel nodded. He didn’t seem bothered at all when Dean moved away from the living room, trying to find a private corner.

“The last door in the hall is my study, you can go there,” he heard Castiel call and Dean lifted his hand to him in thanks and then accepted the call.

“Sam?”

_“Are you still at the library?”_ he heard Sam ask. He made a guilty little grimace. He opened the last door and stepped into the room. There wasn’t much in it but a simple table and a chair and a laptop. It looked like any regular office, not one spec of anything supernatural in it. The rug under the table looked worn and was atrociously colorful, but Dean doubted it was malicious.

“Uh, no,” Dean said and he could almost hear Sam reaching his conclusions in the ensuing silence.

_“Don’t tell me you’re on another date!”_ Unsurprisingly, Sam sounded exasperated. _“Dean, come on! He’s our case!”_

“Don’t you think I know that? I just ran into him,” he said defensively though that sounded weak even to his own ears.

_“Dean, I’m really starting to get worried about this,”_ Sam told him, his voice strained. Dean leant against the wall, looking out of the window without really seeing anything and then he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Look… We’re not getting anywhere on our own. So I’m just going to try to get as much information as I can out of him,” Dean told him but Sam’s silence wasn’t very encouraging. “My GPS is switched on and I’ll send you the usual SOS message if anything goes south.”

_“Okay. If you say so. But be careful, Dean. I know you want to trust him, believe me, I get this. You’re desper-“_

“Oh come on, not now, okay?” Dean complained when Sam’s voice became too gentle and understanding. “Castiel is not my Ruby, okay? He’s not going to feed me demon blood and lead me onto the road of evil.”

_“Don’t be a dick,”_ Sam hissed, but there wasn’t much venom in his voice. Dean was just glad that he got Sam to drop the topic because even the possibility of this being the same kind of thing scared the crap out of Dean. His brother sighed deeply. _“I just called to let you know that I just got off the phone with Bela. Demon summoning, huh?”_

“Jupp. It’s been a while,” Dean agreed. “Think we can get ingredients here?”

_“I’m on it already. I managed to get some of the easier ingredients for the demon summoning. I’ll try to get a hold of the rest and you…”_ Dean could just imagine the vague hand gesture his brother was probably making.

“Charm the pants off our basilisk? Sure Sammy, I’ll do my best,” he joked and Sam made a disgusted noise and hung up on Dean. Dean’s easy grin slipped off his face and he stared out of the window. What was he even doing here? Was Sam ultimately right? Was he letting himself be lured into something just because he was desperate for help? For some light at the end of the tunnel? But Castiel didn’t know what was waiting for Dean at the end of his ten years, so it was unlikely that he was some sort of player in this hellish scheme like Ruby had been.

All that Dean wanted of Castiel – the monster – was to give him some sliver of hope that he could make it out of this mess. And all he wanted from Castiel, the supposed human, was some comfort.

“Maybe it’s the same after all,” he muttered darkly. He just had to be careful and hope for the best. He took a couple of deep breaths and turned his back on the bare room. Castiel was still sitting on the couch, his legs drawn up even though it didn’t look particularly comfortable to perch like that.

“Is everything alright?” Castiel wondered when Dean let himself drop down onto the pillow infested couch.

“Yeah. Just Sam nagging. I was supposed to do research,” he said and got his coffee cup.

“What were you researching?” Castiel wondered and Dean lifted an eyebrow at him at the obvious question. “Basilisks?”

“You’re not really chatty Cathy so someone’s got to find the lifeline if there is one,” Dean told him, not sure how accusing his voice sounded. Castiel was unperturbed, at least he seemed so at a first glance, but there was a tiny wrinkle between his eyebrows and he avoided Dean’s eyes. That was new. “If you’re not going to tell me if I can be saved, then why am I here?” Castiel turned his tea cup around in his hands.

“I suppose that I enjoy spending time with you,” he revealed and Dean looked at him in confusion. “I feel drawn to you.”

“But why?” Dean challenged. “Is it because to you I’m some kind of puzzle you want to figure out? Am I some kind of game to you?” Castiel looked at him, his gaze as clear and honest as ever.

“If you don’t want me to try to figure you out then I won’t,” he told him and Dean snapped his mouth shut, not sure what to do with that or if to trust it. No. He was certainly not going to trust it. Castiel possibly held the key to Dean’s survival in his hands and still they were sitting here like this, sipping hot drinks. It was kind of ridiculous.

“I don’t want you to figure me out. I want you to help me,” he pushed but Castiel would still not look at him. “If you can’t or you won’t then I don’t get why I’m here. It’s not fun.”

“You don’t want to spend time with me? When you didn’t know I wasn’t human you seemed interested,” Castiel said and he finally looked up from his cup. There was no accusation in his tone and none in his look either. He did seem slightly disappointed though.

“It’s kinda hard to just go on casual dates and have fun when you’re trying to avoid an eternity of torture,” Dean said flatly. “Do you even know what hell is, Cas?” The basilisk didn’t say anything and Dean bent forwards to put his cup on the table, never breaking eye contact with Castiel. “Do you know what hell does to people?”

“Yes, I know,” Castiel said, his voice rough and almost irritated. “I understand hell just as well as you do.”

“So do you know how it feels that in May I’ll be dragged down there? Can you even imagine how I’m feeling?” Castiel was narrowing his eyes but Dean didn’t let him look away. He grabbed his chin and forced him to keep staring until eventually Castiel averted his eyes. Dean let him go but Castiel instantly put his hand on Dean’s arm, keeping some point of contact between them.

“No. I don’t. I’m not human. I only know purpose, not fear.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Dean said and then he withdrew from Castiel’s hold. He got up from the stuffy sofa. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. Castiel was looking at him with wide eyes. When Dean had walked around the sofa towards the door, Castiel called out to him:

“It gets lonely,” he said and Dean’s steps faltered. He slowly turned around with a frown of confusion on his face. Castiel had turned towards Dean, looking over the back of the sofa. “I don’t know fear, but I know sorrow.”

“So… what? You’re lonely and that’s why you want to hang out with me?” Dean asked, unsure what Castiel was trying to say.

“Yes. I can interact with people, but I can’t form attachments or even start relationships with humans. I never even wanted to. I only watch,” Castiel told him and there was something in the way he said it that made Dean think that there was more to it. Only watching, not interfering. “Dean. With you it’s different. For the first time I want to connect with someone. Maybe because you’re a hunter. You know that I’m not like you.” Dean crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the door frame. He had no intention to stay, but Castiel’s shoulders lost some of their tension when Dean didn’t storm out on him.

“Doesn’t Europe have other hunters? Did nobody ever come for you like we did?” he asked. If Rufus could see the pattern then certainly others more familiar with the lore of the place could too.

“No. There is no need for hunters here.” Dean scoffed at that. Yeah right. He looked past Castiel, at all the flowers and then at the window beyond. There was a small balcony outside, also filled with flowers and beyond that he could see the roof tops of the city extending before him. As far as nests went, Castiel hadn’t chosen a bad locations. Dean let his arms drop in realization. He was in Castiel’s nest. When he let his eyes wander around he couldn’t really see anything that looked like an egg, but that didn’t mean there was none.

“Hey… Uh… How about giving me a tour of the place?” he wondered and even though it probably sounded a bit forced Castiel didn’t bat an eyelash. He got up from the sofa and stepped over to Dean.

“Of course,” he said and there was a small smile tugging at his lips. “I have never shown my place to anyone.”

“Awesome,” Dean said. “Lead the way then!” Castiel smiled again and led him into the kitchen. Is was a big open space with high ceilings and wooden beams. It was just a regular kitchen and he had no chance to snoop around the cabinets now. He casually opened one to peek inside. Finding it empty.

“It’s only me… I have no need for a lot…” Castiel confessed and pulled at Dean’s sleeve to get him to follow him to the corridor he’d been in before. “You already saw the study. This here is the guest room.” He pulled the second to last door open. Dean peeked inside. A single bed and again more plants. “I don’t have guests of course.” Castiel let Dean look around but it really wasn’t anything remarkable. The bed had white sheets and the flowers were all green somethings. There was no space to hide any eggs in, unless they were inside the flower pots. Castiel was a warm presence at his back which Dean felt even though there was space between them. He felt him step back, that odd, strong presence receding. Castiel opened the door opposite the guest room, a spacious bathroom. It had small, high windows and seemed squeaky clean. The bathtub was large and everything smelt fresh. Unused. He followed Castiel out again and to the last door which, surprisingly led to a staircase. The bare wooden steps creaked ominously under Dean’s weight but Castiel was as noiseless as a cat, which was really unnerving him. They came out into a somewhat stuffy smelling attic room, but the moment Dean properly looked past Castiel he opened his mouth in surprise.

“Do you like it?” Castiel asked and even though his expression didn’t betray any emotion, his voice sounded unsure, shy almost. Dean stepped closer into… well… the nest. There was no other way to call it probably. While below had been clean and unassuming, this here was one cozy place. The ceiling was wood, almost all of it painted in splotches of colors. The motifs and intensity of colors varied greatly, from little decorative patterns to medieval looking beasts and some arcane symbols. The wooden floor was covered by rugs and in the middle of the room was a mountain of blankets and cushions. There was another door, equally painted, but Castiel didn’t invite him there. “Dean?” He snapped out of his thoughts and turned around to find Castiel looking at him expectantly.

“This your nest?” he asked and received a nod. “It looks comfortable,” he said and a smile flickered over Castiel’s face.

“It is comfortable,” he agreed and for some reason there was potential in the silence that followed Castiel’s statement. Dean half expected to be invited to try it out, but Castiel didn’t say anything, he merely watched him.

“That’s good. Probably better than living in wells.”

“That sounds hardly comfortable,” Castiel agreed and just like that the tension was gone again. They went back down into the living room and there was no look of loss on Castiel’s face when Dean pulled on his jacket now.

“I better get back to my brother, before he thinks you ate me,” Dean explained and patted down his pockets to see if he had everything.

“I don’t eat humans.” Dean laughed at that and then Castiel pressed an umbrella into his hands. Fortunately not the monstrosity of before, just something white with some splotches of color on it that Dean couldn’t figure out what it was as long as the umbrella was folded. “Will you still stay?”

“In Basel? Yeah. Can’t leave now, can I?” he said and Castiel looked away again. Maybe this was a good thing. If Castiel cared enough now to feel guilty about not helping him, he might eventually change his mind. Maybe it was low of Dean to try to win Castiel’s favor in order to have him help him. It was manipulative but Dean was desperate. A lot more was on the line than the feelings of the monster before him. And it wasn’t like Dean wouldn’t… like he wouldn’t go for it if Castiel were a human. He wasn’t sure if that made it okay, but for now it was enough.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said and then he took a step closer to Castiel. He widened his eyes to find Dean putting his hand against his cheek and then Dean pressed a soft kiss against his lips.

“Yes,” was all Castiel said, blinking at Dean, but there was a smile on his face when Dean looked back to the door once he was at the stairs. Castiel lifted his hand to wave at him and Dean’s heart skipped a beat. He tried to force down the blush and thundered down the stairs and into the rainy afternoon.

He opened the umbrella and looked up. There was a cartoon dragon on it and below that the words “Radio Basilisk”. Dean shook his head and made his way down the many steps of the small alley. 


	5. Chapter 5

Dean didn’t know how Sam managed to do it but he had all the ingredients for a demon summoning together by the next day. On top of that Bela called them because the guy with the supposed basilisk eggs was willing to sell. The only problem Bela still had to work around was to get the thing through customs without arousing suspicion.

“Don’t forget to ask that guy for some kind of manual on how to use them,” Dean told her with a snort, “or we’ll have to get hold of a witch.” Sam, who was listening in on the conversation while bending over the map to find a crossroads, snorted. They really didn’t want to summon a demon into this house, there didn’t seem to be any abandoned buildings either, so all that was left was to drive out of town and find a crossroad there. Not easy, when you had no idea where anything was.

“Got something to share with the class, Sammy?” Dean asked and his brother shook his head.

“I was just thinking that last time we worked with a witch we didn’t have a lot of luck.”

“Yeah because she was a demon _and_ a witch,” Dean said while Bela commented this old argument with a huffed laugh. “Besides, if she were still around she wouldn’t help us. She fed you demon blood so that you could cross right into hell. She’s good where she is. Dead I mean.” Sam rolled his eyes.

_“Are you done?”_ Bela asked in a bored tone and Dean snorted. _“I will try to find out whatever I can about how to use this thing. I already put Charlie on trying to find something with which we can blackmail the bloke.”_ Dean laughed, shaking his head.

“Good, keep us up to date. We’ll try to get in touch with your Crowley dude tonight,” he told her.

_“Will do. Good luck, guys,”_ she answered and then she hung up. Dean put the phone away and turned to look at his brother. He raised an eyebrow in question and Sam nodded, stabbing his finger at the map.

“Found a crossroad. We’re good to go.”

* * *

Dean shivered against the chill of the night. He was following Sam at a leisurely pace. They had taken a train out of the city and here the world was at rest. He could hear the far away rattling of a train, but the world around them was shrouded in silence and darkness. There was gravel under their feet and the moon above was full enough for Dean to see that there were fields surrounding them.

“I guess this is it,” Sam announced and Dean looked around. They had reached a crossing of two paths and a signpost was erected in one corner. It was too dark to read. Sam didn’t lose any time, setting down a bowel in the middle and starting to draw a devil’s trap big enough to not let a demon get out. They were not going to take any risks. They had done this long enough now to know how to be careful around demons.

It was so quiet that it almost unnerved Dean and he wondered just what was out there in the European darkness. Something glimmered in the distance, some white flicker at the tree line across the field. Dean squinted while Sam was busy preparing the summoning. Something was watching them, shrouded in white, but not coming closer.

“Sam…,” he urged and his brother looked up, following the line of his sight towards the forest edge. He apparently saw them too but they didn’t come closer even when the brothers stared at them challengingly. Eventually they turned away and the unnatural light that had shone from them disappeared.

“Fairies. I read about those white women. They aren’t harmful. Don’t worry,” Sam said even though Dean knew that this was just a random guess. “But why they’d come watch I don’t know.”

“Maybe they’re like Cas… Feeling that something odd’s going on that’s disturbing their… supernatural feng shui or something,” Dean said with a snort, then he held out his arm for Sam to make a cut for the blood. “Maybe they’re just like that here in Europe. They just watch and do nothing.”

“I doubt that,” Sam said and wrapped a handkerchief around Dean’s arm after he had drawn enough blood. Dean grunted and pressed the cloth to the small cut. Afterwards he spoke the incantation and threw a match into the bowl. It flamed up and for a short moment the crossroad was drenched in flickering light. Then it dissolved in pale smoke and darkness reclaimed them. Dean lifted an eyebrow and both brothers looked around. No Crowley.

“Well, that’s odd,” he said and he saw just enough to make out the frown on Sam’s face. His brother put the bowl away and started digging a hole into the ground. “Dude.”

“Plan B,” he said and pulled out a small box out of his jacket. Dean knew the proceedings well enough to figure out that Sam was going to summon a cross road demon.

“Hey!” he protested, but Sam was already closing the hole and Dean held his breath, waiting for someone to show.

Silence was hanging over them, getting tenser and tenser every second that tricked by without anything showing up.

“Uh…,” was all Sam managed to stammer for a moment and he looked at Dean helplessly.

“Maybe this doesn’t qualify as a crossroad?”

“Of course it does. It’s a crossroad!” Sam protested, pointing both of his hands down at the ground. Dean shrugged.

“Crowley!” Dean called, his voice echoing and quickly fading into the night. Dean groaned and pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, more annoyed than frustrated. “Come on! Don’t tell me that Europe has different demon summoning rituals!”

“No, no definitely not. Most of the demon lore comes from here,” Sam argued and both stared at the useless crossroad for a while.

“Well shit,” Dean commented. “Grab your junk. Let’s try to get a train back.” Helpless to do anything else, Sam followed his brother’s angry stomping away, but he cast one look back over his shoulder. When they were almost gone he saw the white women cover the hole in the ground. It was as if the Winchesters had never been there. The landscape remained undisturbed.

* * *

Bela was as baffled as they were when they told her how the ritual had failed. Charlie suggested that she and Bobby would try to find a hunting network in Europe.

_“Maybe something fishy is going on in the entire country,”_ Charlie tentatively offered. “Or the entire continent maybe. Sure, demons don’t usually walk the earth and I guess they only show up in greater numbers in the States because of you guys.” There was a beat of silence before Charlie continued. _“No offense.”_

“None taken,” Sam offered but Dean could see the sad expression on his face. Of course Sam would blame himself. It was always the same. “But Charlie, you can’t just cancel out summons. Those are powerful enough to grab demons no matter where they were. And while it’s possible that this Crowley guy isn’t topside at the moment, certainly one crossroad demon should be able to show up.”

_“I mean yes. But only if they want to come taunt you two guys,”_ Charlie said and Dean sighed. That was true. _“Nobody is going to deal, we know that. And you’ve got a track record of killing all the crossroad demons you manage to capture. So if I were one of them? I wouldn’t come running if a Winchester knocked at my door.”_

“So we’d have to get someone else to summon them… Or at least try again later for this Crowley guy,” Dean summarized. “Or wait for him to come to us. I’m sure he’ll have heard about us by now and if he wants to deal then he’ll come.”

_“Yeah… I think so too,”_ Charlie said, her voice sounding a bit insecure. Dean heard her sigh. _“I’m sorry that it didn’t work… I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, let you know if any demonic omens pop up around where you are. And Bobby’ll get on the European hunter network question.”_

“Thanks Charlie, you’re the best,” Sam said and they could hear her pleased giggle. They said their good-byes and the connection was switched off. Sam was leaning over the table, with a look of indecision on his face. Dean watched him for a moment and then he put his phone back into his pocket. “What are we going to do?” Dean shrugged.

“Wait I suppose?”

“You can’t afford to wait,” Sam argued and squirmed in his chair as if he couldn’t get comfortable. Dean understood. Whenever he thought about May looming closer he wanted to crawl out of his skin. He sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead. “We’ll find a way to get a hold of this Crowley. But until then maybe you…” When Sam’s sentence sputtered out into silence Dean looked up to find him frowning.

“What?”

“Maybe we should try to force Castiel’s hand. Get him to help. Use him to maybe grab Crowley. I don’t know. Even if he doesn’t help he might at least know why we can’t summon him.” Dean snorted. “I’m serious.”

“Of course you are,” Dean said dismissively and got up from the table. “But it’s like 3 AM and I’m pissed, so I’m going to sleep.” He saw that Sam wanted to complain but in the end he snapped his mouth shut and turned his glare down towards the table. Dean knew that if he didn’t go to Cas anytime soon, then Sam would find a way. While he quickly stripped and got into the uncomfortable bed, he wondered if that was the easier way out. To let Sam draw a clear line between them and Castiel, between human and monster. Sam would probably feel terrible, but if it had to be done then he wouldn’t hesitate to use Castiel for their ends. Maybe he could force the secrets to Dean’s salvation out of his soft mouth, maybe he could turn his delicate hands into tools. And maybe Dean should be on board. He probably should be, because even though it was his life on the line, Sam would be pulled down with him eventually if Dean couldn’t stop him. So for Sam and the world’s sake he should ignore his odd fondness for this monster and stick to a clear black and white world view that made hunters live longer. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. There was no way that he would allow his cowardice to force Sam’s hand.

Dean groaned deeply, the sound lost in the stuffy, small room and the pitch black darkness beyond his little window. He fell asleep with a heavy weight resting on top of his chest. He imagined that it would soon be the sharp clawed paws of a hellhound coming to get him.

* * *

There was fresh air. A second ago Dean had felt the hot, putrid vapors of hell all around him and slipping down into his lungs. He felt how he had been turned into ash from the inside and how his frail human body has been clawed apart.

But now there was nothing.

He was sitting on a field, the grass and air fresh with the dew of slowly approaching morning. The world around him was that purplish quality of light just before the sun showed its face. Dean didn’t know where he was but he gazed into the distance, overlooking valleys and hills beyond. There were still a few lonely stars in the sky, but they were fading as morning advanced.

Dean lay back into the grass and closed his eyes. A new serenity took over him and for a while he didn’t remember anything outside of this perfect moment.

After a long while he felt a presence next to him. Nothing that worried him or could make him crack open his eyes. Maybe it was a bird, watching him from the trees on the field. But then he vaguely remembered that he was a hunter and that he shouldn’t be unaware of the world around him. He forced an eye open and saw Castiel leaning over him. He yelped and sat up quickly. Castiel took a step to the side, so as to avoid Dean’s undignified flailing.

“What are you-,” Dean stammered and then he looked around himself, suddenly being fully aware that he was not where he was supposed to be. “Where the hell am I?!”

“You’re still where you were last,” Castiel said cryptically and Dean resisted the urge to curse at him. “You’re dreaming.” Dean frowned at him.

“So you’re…”

“I’m real. I walked into your dream when I noticed that you would be facing a restless slumber.” Dean was surprised that this didn’t wake him up at once with shock and anger.

“Dude!” he shouted, “you can’t just waltz into the privacy of my head like that! What if I were having a sex dream?!”

“Would that have embarrassed you?” Castiel asked and Dean did notice that there was a teasing twinkle in his eyes, but he was too flustered to react appropriately.

“Yeah! That’s just common curtesy, man! You’re not supposed to breech privacy like that!” Castiel appeared to think that through and actually seemed slightly contrite when he was looking down at Dean again.

“I apologize,” he said and for some reason Dean had the feeling that he would disappear, so his hand shot out and he grabbed the fabric of his trench coat.

“You’re already here, so sit your ass down,” he commanded and there was almost something like relief lifting Castiel’s expression. He sat down and looked at Dean. He felt his eyes hot on the side of his face even though Dean tried his best to just stare at the distance. The sun was still not up and Dean assumed that this dream world was perpetually suspended in this in-between state.

“We haven’t talked in a while. You busy or what?” Dean finally asked and he saw Castiel tilt his head to the side.

“Not more than usual. Though I was told that someone tried to summon a crossroad demon,” he said and lifted his eyebrow for emphasis. Dean frowned but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right about it. Damn, why did he have to know everything? “If I understood correctly you already made a deal almost 10 years ago, so why did you want to summon another one?”

“Every one of them might hold my deal. Maybe I can get them to tear it up,” he said gruffly and Castiel seemed to think that through. “But it didn’t work.”

“No. I don’t allow demons to enter,” Castiel affirmed and Dean widened his eyes.

“You keep demons away?” Castiel nodded. “Woah. You must be one powerful son of a bitch.” Castiel watched him without saying anything. “So as long as I stay here there’s no chance that I can break my deal. Great.” Castiel was silent and his eyes were downcast. “Could _you_ break the deal?”

“I don’t know. It seems that hell’s chains are firmly attached to you,” Castiel told him but still wouldn’t look at him.

“And you won’t even try?” Dean pushed, trying to keep the flare of anger out of his voice but failing spectacularly. The dream landscape around them flickered, everything dimming for a moment, but then it returned to its normal tranquility.

“I want to help you, Dean,” Castiel told him softly and Dean watched him clasp his hands together like in prayer. “I don’t want you to suffer.” He turned his head to the side and looked at Dean, his expression open and honest. “I like you.”

“Then-“

“But there are rules,” Castiel continued, raising his voice slightly to speak over Dean’s interjection. “There is an order to things. A balance that I shouldn’t disrupt. Not lightly, not for just anyone.” Dean wanted to hold Castiel’s gaze but he faltered. He grit his teeth and stared at his hands. He almost shoved Castiel away when he felt the light touch on his shoulder. Castiel radiated warmth but it wasn’t enough to reduce the cold fire of dread and anger in Dean’s stomach.  “Why won’t you just tell me the truth?” Dean grabbed a fistful of the fake grass, tension making him feel almost nauseous. Waking up right about now would be ideal but he felt that as long as Castiel wanted him here he wouldn’t be able to leave. Just great.

“I’m not sure which side you will pick,” he said after a long and for him uncomfortable stretch of silence. He could still feel Castiel next to him, like he was a warm sunbeam that heated up Dean’s side. He sighed and raised his head to look at him. Castiel wore a frown, but nothing in his posture or expression made Dean think that he was angry. “There is only one right side and monsters usually don’t make good decisions.” Castiel huffed at that and maybe Dean should be glad that he hadn’t angered him. Who knew what Castiel could do in this dream. Dean didn’t even want to think about it. Sure, it was a dream, but that didn’t make it feel any less real.

“Neither do humans, especially under pressure,” Castiel challenged. “I don’t know if there’s a right and a wrong side.”

“Apparently you do think there is, if you make sure that no demons can make pacts with desperate humans,” Dean commented dryly. “Apparently you do agree that what demons do is wrong.”

“I don’t like demons. They disturb something within me. They’re…” Castiel squinted, trying to find the right word. “Corrupted. Lost. Painful for me to behold.”

“And you can’t extend that whatever it is you’re feeling to more people? It’s a good thing that you protect the people of this town, but they’re not the only ones who could need a helping hand.” Dean had no idea if he was getting anywhere with this conversation. He thought that there was a chance, maybe a tiny one, to sway Castiel into doing the right thing, even without giving him the whole sob story of the last ten years. But Castiel seemed reluctant to give him an answer.

“I make sure that within my realm no demons will attack humans but I can’t extend it infinitely. The balance-“

“Balance my ass!” Dean interrupted and the basilisk snapped his mouth shut, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “Aren’t you one of the good guys?! Don’t you want to make sure that no innocent people fall prey to hell?!” Castiel didn’t properly react to Dean’s anger but somehow Dean wished he would.

“I’m not a good guy. I’m not on either side. I watch. Humans were made with the ability to choose.”

“You’re not limiting their freedom by making sure that people don’t sell their souls for a bit of mercy!  I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you!”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s always a right and a wrong! Because demons? They’re wrong! A 14 year old girl being tricked into selling her soul just so that she will no longer be hurt by her parents is wrong! Standing by and watching is wrong!” Maybe, Dean thought, he would have stood by and watched if Bela hadn’t asked them for help. Maybe he wouldn’t have listened to her if Dean hadn’t realized that she must have been so young when making the deal. Still, he went with just the plea for help. Why couldn’t Cas do the same?!

“That’s not what you did though.” Dean blinked at him, surprised at the sudden change of topic. He was still burning with anger, but now it ran cold and dreadful. “You sold your soul for your brother’s life.”

“So what? Don’t change the subject!”

“If there were no demon deals then there would have been no option to get Sam back,” Castiel told him calmly and Dean clenched his fists. “It’s difficult to speak of good and evil in absolutes. I don’t like demons so I keep them out, but I can’t stop people from stepping out of my realm and making their own choices. I can’t stop humans from becoming demons, I can’t stop demons from corrupting humans.” He turned towards Dean, sitting on his knees now. He looked like he wanted to reach out to Dean but he didn’t, his long fingers hovering close to Dean’s chest. “I can’t stop hunters from making their choices.”

“Cas… I had no choice,” he said hoarsely, his throat feeling like it was closing on him, swallowing everything else he could and should say.

“I understand. But I can’t see where your case stands in the greater scheme of things. Until I do… I have to stand back and watch,” he said, his voice barely a whisper that caressed Dean’s cheeks. He reached out and felt the fabric of the trench coat between his fingers. A soft wind ruffled Dean’s hair and when he looked past his hand holding on to the tan fabric, up into Castiel’s face and beyond he could see dark shapes raising above him.

“Maybe one day you will tell me,” Castiel said and then those black shapes – wings? – moved and Castiel was gone. There was only air between Dean’s fingers.

In the silent dream world the sun finally rose above the hills.

* * *

Dean was morose for most of the morning. Sam observed him with silent concern but Dean was glad to be given a bit of space. The dream conversation with Castiel was replaying in his mind, questions about balance and choosing sides circling in his head. Of how the world was easier when there was only black and white. How there had at least been certainty in a bloody and dark world, before… Well, before Sam’s death and his deal. Demons and the supernatural world at large were the rotten blemish that sucked the life out of innocent humans. That humans were not all good was never in doubt, but when monsters were good and when humans were suddenly claimed for the bad side… That’s when Dean’s chest started to ache for a life away from this. This was when the weight of guilt and doubt weighed so much on him that it forced his mouth shut.

“You want some coffee?” Dean only gave Sam a small nod and continued to stare at a book, without really reading. Sam had gotten used to Dean’s occasional muteness and even though he had once tried to coax Dean into using his hands to sign, he had quickly learned that when Dean wouldn’t talk then he didn’t want to communicate at all. Fortunately this wasn’t really one of those deep, dark pits that he fell into and needed weeks to climb out of. It was simply difficult to form words when hell wrapped his thoughts into layers upon layers of fog.

“Sam,” he started and his brother looked up from his notes, his eyes wide in surprise. Dean didn’t really want to look at him. “Do you really think that keeping me alive is the right thing?” He could hear his brother’s sharp inhale.

“Wh… Of course, Dean,” he said, his voice full of conviction. “You don’t deserve to go to hell, Dean! Keeping you alive is _all_ that matters!” Dean huffed a small, humorless laugh. He felt Sam reach out and grab his shoulder, giving him a squeeze and a small shake, as if he could shake the sense back into Dean. “Where is this coming from? What happened? What did you dream of?”

“Nothing,” he said and hoped it sounded convincing enough. “It’s just that time is running out and I’ve… I mean don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go to hell, but I think I could do it, if I knew you wouldn’t follow me.”

“Yes, I know you could,” Sam said, his voice tense. “But I told you before and I’m telling you again, I won’t make you that promise. I will march down there and get you out again. And if I can’t… Well, then we’ll just have to play by hell’s rules until we become powerful enough to bend them.” There was a quiver in Sam’s voice but otherwise nothing about him betrayed how he feared this outcome. Dean finally looked up, finding his brother look at him with concern, which quickly morphed into a confident smile. “There’s got to be good in it, you know? Imagine how hell will change if two Winchesters rule it.” Dean snorted at that and grabbed for the coffee cup.

“Yeah, right,” he said and then he took a sip of the bitter liquid. Dean almost missed Starbucks and the sugar and cream Sam put into his cup to tease him. He knew that Sam clung to this hope with all his might, especially as the likelihood of busting Dean free of the deal was diminishing day by day. But Dean remembered what Ruby had said, of how hell changed people.

_“They’ll pull you apart, Dean. They’ll pull and push and cut and burn until you forget how a loving touch feels. You forget what happiness is. You forget that you endure all of this for love.”_ Ruby’s words still rang in his ears as if she was whispering them to Dean this moment. _“Eventually you’ll only remember purpose. They’ll put a knife in your hand and you’ll slaughter in the name of Sam without a single thought. Humanity is a weakness in hell. You’ll cast it off. We all had to cast it off.”_

So no… He didn’t believe in the hope that Sam clung to but he couldn’t… God help him, but he couldn’t take this away from Sam. He just wished that there was a way for him to make sure that Sam couldn’t follow.

“Dean? Dean!” Dean snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Sam. His brother looked relieved for a moment. “Don’t space out like that! I was thinking that you were seeing hell visions or something.”

“Your face is a hell vision,” Dean grumbled in embarrassment. Sam laughed at that and Dean also chanced a small smile. The coffee in his cup was still bitter and cooling, but he drank it so he could feel a bit more awake.

“I asked what we should be doing. Obviously neither of us wants to go to hell. Bela managed to get the egg and she sent me a picture,” Sam said and turned around his mobile phone. Dean frowned and pulled it closer. The supposed basilisk egg was barely above the size of a normal chicken’s egg. It was glimmering faintly, like its shell was made of some kind of quartz.

“Bela said it smelled almost as bad as rotten eggs, but the seller claimed that it was fresh out of a nest. According to Bela the seller swears that it’s potent, but if you want to break a demon deal you can’t use it as an ingredient. The demon will take it because of its value. So it’d be an exchange of goods. The egg for the contract,” Sam explained and pulled the phone out of Dean’s hands again. “So we just have to try summoning this Crowley again. I still have enough ingredients to try again, maybe without monsters there to disturb our summoning.”

“But didn’t Cas say that the eggs won’t help in my situation?” Dean wondered and saw Sam’s face instantly cloud over.

“Well, your _Cas_ might have been lying and Bela said if there’s one demon that will be interested in making that exchange it must be the guy who paid a lot of money for the Colt. Crowley will deal, if we get a hold of him. So come on, let’s set up a ritual!” Sam got up and started clearing the table.

“It’s not possible,” Dean said and his brother groaned. “No, Sam, listen! There’s some kind of demon ban here in Switzerland, or at least as far as Castiel’s powers reach.” That got Sam to stop instantly. He put the metallic bowl down with a clank and leant heavily onto his palms.

“What?”

“I asked Cas about it and he said that demons can’t enter. Which means that they also can’t be summoned,” he explained. It was with some consternation that he observed how Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“And you trust that?”

“Obviously demons can’t be summoned, I think it’s pretty clear that he was telling the truth,” Dean said in annoyance and Sam sighed at that. He leant back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, thinking. “So if we want to grab Crowley we’ll have to hop over the border,” he decided.

“Do you think that hellhounds also can’t home here?” Sam asked, the question taking Dean by surprise. He looked at Sam in confusion. “I mean… If you stayed here… Maybe they couldn’t come to collect your soul.”

“I… Uh… I don’t know,” Dean said and he hated how there was hope in Sam’s eyes. “Sam! You can’t really want to lock me up here for the rest of my life on the off-chance that this is also a hellhound no fly zone!” Sam raised his shoulders defensively.

“Can’t you ask Castiel? Maybe he’ll grant you shelter?”

“And have every hellhound claw at his barrier? I don’t know,” Dean said. “And what if they’ll go after you? Or Charlie, or Bela, or Bobby? Basically anyone who’s connected to me? I can’t hide here!”

“But you want to go back home and wait for them to get you?” Sam asked in disbelief.

“At least at home I know that once the clock strikes midnight it’ll be over!” Dean shouted and that shut Sam up very quickly. Dean sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead. “Look, Sam… I’ll ask Cas okay? But you can’t put your hopes on this.”

“Okay,” Sam agreed reluctantly, his voice small like that of a scolded child. Dean wanted to give him something else to focus on, anything at all. So he thought back to that odd dream. Surely that would get Sam’s mind going into a different direction for a second.

“So… I’ve had this weird dream,” he started and Sam instantly perked up. “And Cas showed up.”

“Uh, dude. I don’t even want to-“

“No! Not one of the good dreams,” Dean snapped and Sam pretended to sigh in great relief. “Dick. No, it’s more like Cas waltzed right into my dream.”

“You’re not talking about your mind conjuring up the imagine of him,” Sam asked, “you mean actual dream walking?” Dean nodded.

“It’s weird right? That’s not in the lore at all.” Sam nodded slowly and Dean could see the gears in his brother’s head turning. Sam pulled the laptop close to him and clicked around. Dean let him do it, wondering if he should pull out his phone to send Castiel a text but decided that no. No, he was still kinda weirded out about having him snoop around in his brain. “Maybe…” The careful tone made Dean stop glaring at his phone and look up at Sam instead. “Maybe Castiel is more than he seems?”

“Yeah, obviously he’s not just some random banker dude in a trench coat,” Dean commented flatly. Sam rolled his eyes at him. “What do you mean then?”

“I mean that we have no proof that he’s actually what he claims to be,” Sam explained and Dean lifted his eyebrow in confusion. Sam gestured to the laptop, not that Dean could see the screen. “We obviously don’t know what a basilisk king can do, but none, absolutely _none_ of the lore about him is true.” Dean was somehow inexplicably uncomfortable with the direction this was going. Monsters that could not be classified were always creepy, especially if there was very little lore on how to kill them. “When did that last happen? When did we last deal with a monster that just defied all the lore we have on it? And there’s plenty, Dean. Across different countries and cultures and times. The tales and popular imagination are always based on a grain of truth. But Castiel…”

“Doesn’t fit…” Dean continued and Sam nodded. “Huh.”

“You think he might be something else?” Sam suggested and Dean shrugged.

“Maybe he’s still the king. Like the alpha monster. Those can do far more than the regular ones. But maybe we’ll have to cross-reference what we know about him with the catalogues,” Dean suggested. He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of Cas not being a basilisk. But for now it felt like they were just grasping at straws because they had no idea how to deal with him.

“Yeah, why don’t you write what we know down into one of the Men of Letters files?” Sam suggested and turned the computer around again, their handy catalogue open. Dean groaned. He had always done his best to avoid doing proper Men of Letters work. It was more Sam’s domain. Dean did research if he had to, otherwise he was happy putting the knowledge about how to kill monsters to good use. Sam seemed oddly pleased at having pushed the duty on him, if his stupid smug face was anything to go by. “Fine!” he snapped and pulled the laptop close. “But you’re going to get us Starbucks, the coffee you make sucks.” Sam was still grinning by the time he left.

* * *

When Charlie’s phone call interrupted the dull monotony of typing up reports and cross referencing them with their partially digitalized Men of Letters library, Dean was almost ready to send a prayer of thanks upstairs. It was tedious work and he didn’t know how Sam could get his kicks out of it.

_“Hey bitches!”_ Charlie’s familiar voice rang through the increasingly stuffy small room. _“I hope you’ve been missing me!”_

“Sure Charlie!” Sam agreed readily while Dean was happy to push the laptop way from him and flex his fingers.

“Tell us what you’ve got!” he asked. He grabbed his Starbucks cup and waved it around, finding it sadly empty. But there was no time for another coffee run, so he got up to make some more.

_“Quite a bit. Bobby’s still digging into the hunting networks here and it seems like while most countries have their hunting communities, there doesn’t seem to be one in Switzerland. No active one I mean. I’ve read about Swiss hunters working for other communities but there don’t seem to be cases here, you know? There are hauntings and supernatural creatures I’ve found records of, so supernatural things don’t just stop happening once you’ve crossed the borders. But it’s not the gruesome supernatural murders you guys deal with.”_

“Okay, but that could just mean that they are efficient enough that nothing big happens. Taking out a werewolf before it slaughters 10 people doesn’t mean that there have been no werewolves or hunters to begin with,” Sam reasoned and Charlie agreed.

“We’ve already found out that apparently our resident monster is keeping demon activity on the low,” Dean added.

_“How? Is there some kind of massive devil’s trap that wards the area?”_ Charlie wondered and Dean could hear her excitement in her voice.

“I have no clue. I think it might just be that Castiel’s presence is making them stay clear. He’s a pretty powerful fucker I think.”

_“I’m not going to comment on your word choice in regards to your summer flirt,”_ Charlie said and Dean groaned in annoyance.

“I shouldn’t have sent you a text,” he moaned and then he turned to Sam. “Have you been talking about this behind my back?” he accused, pointing at Sam who was trying to keep a straight face.

_“Yeah, because other than you, Sam was worried. Could be a siren after all! A cute one, I have to agree, but who knows!”_ Charlie chirped and Dean just rolled his eyes. _“Anyway. Yes, okay. That explains some of the absence of hunters. But I’ve got something else for you!”_

“Shoot, then!” Dean urged, glad that the topic shifted away from him and Cas to something a bit more case related.

_“You know that the Men of Letters were active almost everywhere, right? They initially were an English organization that expanded to Germany when the first wave of witch trials started to wreak havoc. So I thought: isn’t it possible that they have a branch in Switzerland. And bingo.”_

“There’s a Men of Letters branch in Switzerland?” Sam asked in disbelief and exchanged looks with Dean.

_“Yeah, but they call themselves something else… I think it translates to Guardians of Letters or something. In any case, yes. And you’re in luck. There’s a bunker nearby. I’ll send you a mail with the address,”_ Charlie explained.

“Won’t anyone be in there?” Sam wondered and Dean raised his eyebrows at him. “I mean we can’t just break into a foreign Men of Letters bunker.” Dean laughed at that and shrugged.

“Is it really breaking in if you’ve got the master key?” he wondered and Sam didn’t know what to say to that.

_“Besides. You’re also members of that order. Obviously if anyone’s around you’ll just ask nicely to be let in. We three are basically all that’s left of the American branch. I’m sure they’ll cooperate,” Charlie explained. “But I don’t think you’ll find anyone there. If I understand the files correctly back in the 50ies the place was used for office meetings. There is no official Swiss charter of the Men of Letters. Could be that the information is outdated.”_

“Charlie, thank you,” Sam said and there was an excited smile on his face. “You’re the best.”

_“I know. But don’t you guys think I should be there too? I feel I should help search,”_ she offered and Dean was a bit reluctant to agree. He felt that Charlie was safe over in the States, at least as safe as she could be with her connections to the Winchesters. Then again, there were no demons in Switzerland, which was always a plus.

“We’re not going to stop you if you want to come,” he agreed eventually because it was clear from Sam’s expression that Dean was calling the shots on this one. Charlie yelped in excitement and revealed that the flight was already booked, so they’d better be there to pick her up from the airport. Dean chuckled in amusement and promised he would be, then they said their good-byes. Sam opened the mail with the google map screenshot attached. It didn’t take them long to figure out how to reach it via public transport.

Sam turned to look at him and Dean pulled out the master key out of a warded box he had in his suitcase. He looked at it and then he grinned at Sam.

“Let’s do some digging,” he said.


	6. Chapter 6

Bunkers apparently weren’t particularly worthy of notice here. According to Sam the government had built a heap of more or less hidden fortifications in this region during World War II. Which was hardly surprising, considering that it shared borders with Germany. So nobody paid the plain concrete front built into a hill any notice.

“I think this is actually one of the WWII bunkers repurposed,” Sam said while Dean shone his flashlight into the entrance corridor. Dean didn’t really listen to the history lesson, he instead checked out the nondescript concrete floor and concrete walls. There entrance hall was nothing to look at but once they got through another door and Dean found a handy light switch just to the side, things were starting to look a bit better.

“Huh, not as impressive as I would have hoped,” Sam commented. Sure, the place was nothing like their Bunker. The room they were in looked like a regular, boring office. There was a worn, beige carpet on the floor and a round table in the middle. Various maps hung on the wall and there were old fashioned phones and radios on the wooden corpus lining the back wall. Sam put his duffle down on the round table, pretty much the same model they had in their war room, while Dean went to check out the other rooms. One was a kitchen in a garish design that made Dean almost feel at home with how much it reminded him of a lot of bad motel decorations. There was also a toilet, a small room with two bunk beds, a storage room and something that looked like a library with a desk.

“Well, this looks promising,” Dean decided and started to head over to the shelves. Sam however seemed to have other plans.

“Dean, I found something!” He let the library be and joined Sam in the meeting room. Sam was standing in front of a shelf, looking through a manila folder. “So get this. Apparently there was a meeting here in the early 2000s, the protocol of it is fortunately in English.” Dean sat down on the table and Sam handed him a copy. Dean turned it around in his hands and frowned at the label.

“Crossroad summit Strasbourg 2005,” Dean read. “What’s that? Demon convention or something?”

“Seems like it,” Sam said, his tone intrigued. “Apparently it was frequented by demons and witches mostly. It seems like half a dozen of Men of Letters charters were there.” Dean’s eyes flew over the page, finding a list of names and countries. Obviously none of them was American, almost extinct as they were thanks to demonic interference. “They recorded some speculations on a power shift in hell… And that Crowley guy was actually there.”

“You think that’s got anything to do with Azazel’s plans for you, Sam?” Dean wondered and saw his brother shrug. “I mean obviously the Men of Letters didn’t know what they were talking about. What does it say… Demon deals, Crowley causing controversy by granting a ten year deal, disgruntlement with the continued warding to keep demons out of this country… Huh, so apparently if you want to get inside Switzerland as a demon, you’ll have to ask for an audience with the Great Beast.” Dean chuckled and closed the files to look at Sam. “You think Cas was particularly hospitable?”

“Wait, Dean… there’s something on Cas,” Sam said, too distracted to even listen to Dean properly. He flipped through the pages and apparently found what he wanted. “There’s only a short note but it reads: The Great Beast of Basel is not hostile. It does keep to itself and does not easily talk. Repeated attempts at summoning have proven mostly useless.” Sam cited and then Dean watched him pull a pink post-it off the page. “There’s a signature, I guess it’ll lead to other files,” he said and pinned it down on the war table. Dean glanced at it. “I’ll do the research, let’s see what they have on him. It might be good to get some leverage against him, right?” Sam suggested. Dean was torn on that, but if this were just any other case then that would be the best course of action. And he was kinda curious. So he nodded. He then read through the rest of the minutes, which seemed to be very short and confusing summaries. There probably were better reports filed away in the library. He wanted to put it away but then he noticed a date on the second to last page.

“Hey, there’ll be another one of these this year. Actually, in just a week,” Dean said and turned to look at Sam. He lifted his eyebrow. “Might be a good chance to get hold of a crossroads demon or even Crowley,” he suggested. He could see Sam lower his eyebrows, giving him a brooding look.

“I don’t know, Dean… Don’t you think that this is a bit too careless, even for us?” he asked but Dean snorted and showed Sam the key to the Men of Letters bunker.

“Dude, we are Men of Letters. Why shouldn’t we get in?” Sam wiped his hair out of his face, clearly not entirely comfortable with this plan. Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam in challenge and his brother gave in with a long-suffering sigh.

“Fine,” he agreed. Dean grinned. Sure, he didn’t want to get closer to demons and witches than he had to, but something about this was still exciting. “Awesome.” Dean wanted to join Sam in the library and help digging out stuff on Cas or this summit, but his phone vibrated. He pulled it out and found it to be a text message from Cas.

**“Dean. Where are you? I can’t locate you, it’s like there’s some magical interference. My calls aren’t coming through either. I hope you’re not in any danger. Do you need help?”** The whole message was followed by a number of sad emoticons. Dean huffed a laugh, an odd but not uncomfortable warmth spreading in his stomach to know that Castiel worried.

“Dude, it seems like Cas can’t locate me here. He just sent me a frantic text message asking me if I’m alright,” he called.

“What?” Sam’s voice called back, echoing dully. “Do you think he can’t come here? Maybe there are wards. Could be a good place to hide out in.” Dean frowned and looked around. This place was boring as hell, no way would he stay here for longer than he absolutely had to.

He quickly sent Castiel a reply that he was okay, but then he also noticed the time.

“Aw, crap. Charlie’s going to land in two hours. I should probably get back so I can pick her up from the airport. Are you going to manage on your own?” He walked to the other room to peek in. Sam had discovered an ancient computer and was typing away distractedly, with a stack of books and folders already piling on the desk. “Earth to Sam!”

“Yeah, yeah. I know which bus to take and which tram. I’m not useless just because I can’t speak German,” he said, not looking at Dean. Dean rolled his eyes, then he said his good-byes and left the stale air of the bunker behind. It was early afternoon and it was getting warm now. He followed the small road until he got back into a quiet little quarter of the suburbs. The main road was close and he could grab a bus there. His phone vibrated again just as he reached the orange shelter of the bus stop. This time Cas was actually calling him.

“Hallo Herr Basilisk.”

_“Good, you’re back out of that magical field,”_ Castiel said by way of greeting. _“Where were you?”_

“Top secret place,” Dean said, trying to sound joking so that Castiel would let it go. He heard him sigh loudly, probably annoyed, but he did in fact let it go.

_“I’m glad you’re okay then. I also wanted to ask if you want to have dinner at my house? I don’t cook well but I can call a delivery service.”_ Dean widened his eyes in surprise and turned his attention to the green ticket machine, putting coins into the slot and hoping he punched the right buttons.

“What, you’re inviting me over for a date?” He heard Cas make an affirmative sound. “Yeah okay, why not. I gotta pick up a friend from the airport though. I should be free for dinner.”

_“That’s good, I’m happy you accepted,”_ Castiel said and Dean wondered why he hadn’t even thought twice. It was kinda stupid but for some reason he felt elated. Bela got the egg, Charlie was coming here, they found a Men of Letters bunker and Sam was doing his research thing. For once it looked like they were actually making progress. So yes, he would have dinner with the cute basilisk. He earned it.

“But you sure you wanna order in? I’ve only been here for a couple of weeks and I’m bleeding my fake credit cards dry,” he complained. Since he was alone at the bus stop he didn’t really worry for anyone to overhear him. Occasionally a couple of cars passed the stop but otherwise he was alone.

_“I have money.”_

“Yeah, and where do you get that money from? Do you have like a secret human identity and a boring office job?” Dean teased and heard Castiel huff. When he strained to listen he could hear background noise. He probably was sitting in Starbucks again.

_“I’ve been here for centuries. I’ve sold artifacts and I have acquired various houses which sold for a good price. I also invested in stock on a whim.”_ Dean laughed at that. _“Besides, I found an old dragon hoard with gold. Money is easy to come by if you have centuries and actually almost no expenses.”_ Dean could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Well, okay then. But I’ll cook,” he decided and he could hear Castiel breathe in, probably to object. “Look, I don’t trust you with food when everything you seem to eat are cinnamon rolls from Starbucks and cheap burgers.”

_“Nachos too,”_ Castiel let him know and Dean rolled his eyes fondly. He could see the bus coming down the road and stepped closer to the curb.

“How the hell do you not get flabby?” The bus rumbled to a stop and he got into it, taking a seat.

_“I admit that I’ve been in better shape,”_ Castiel admitted and Dean huffed out a laugh. _“But I’d be happy to let you cook. Just text me what I should buy and when you’ll be there.”_

“Sure. See you later, Cas,” he said and ended the phone call. He opened a text message to Sam, letting him know that he’d be hanging out at Castiel’s place tonight. As expected the answer wasn’t wholly enthusiastic.

**“Okay. But you’ve got to let him know. About the deal. I don’t think we are dependent on him anymore, but having his help might be good.”** Dean sighed deeply and put away the phone without replying. He knew that Sam was right but he liked Cas. Somehow. And he couldn’t forget what he said about judging whether Dean was worthy or not. What if he wasn’t? Would he really just be able to shrug it off it he told Castiel the truth and got only disgusted rejection from him? Maybe it wouldn’t matter. He wasn’t here to get validation from a monster… But still…

If he could just play make believe with Cas for a little bit longer, if he could just fool Cas into believing that he was worth his attention, then things would be alright.

He wouldn’t stay here forever. If things didn’t come through at this monster summit then he’d pack his things and leave. If he had to die then he wouldn’t do it here, not where Castiel would just keep looking at him with his sad eyes. Where he’d watch, but do nothing, when the hellhounds came to drag him down.

* * *

Wrapping Charlie up in a hug did wonders for Dean’s bad mood. Sure, the kid could barely keep on her feet, and her eyelids were constantly drooping, but she was with him, warm and familiar. Another piece of home now with him.

She was only mumbling incoherent things when Dean put her into the bedroom in the house they were currently occupying. Sure that she was comfortable, he quickly went to change and left her a note. Sam would be back soon anyway, so she shouldn’t be alone for long even if she somehow woke up from her deep slumber. He still put salt lines in front of all the doors just to be sure. Then he checked himself in the mirror again, fussing with his hair for a moment, before he left to walk to Cas’ place.

Castiel came down to unlock the front door and Dean pushed all thoughts of the case, hell and the fact that Cas was a monster to the very dark, very remote corner of his brain. Castiel looked as he always did, with black dress pants and a white shirt, but he had ditched the suit jacket and the tie. Instead he wore a bright smile that made Dean bend down and brush a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. Castiel’s smile became even brighter.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Castiel said and guided him upstairs. Nothing about the house had changed since Dean was last here, but the kitchen was overflowing with ingredients. “I hope I got everything you needed.”

“Making burgers won’t take too much effort,” Dean told him and got to work right away, rummaging through the bags and the apparently new pans and other cooking utensils. Castiel hovered nearby, but he watched silently as Dean worked. His presence wasn’t unwelcome and Dean felt at ease here in the basilisk’s kitchen. Which was, in itself, probably a small miracle because usually it took a lot for Dean to let go of the tension guiding his every move. How Cas had managed to endear himself to Dean as quickly as Charlie for example had, was beyond Dean. Maybe, Dean mused as he watched Castiel slowly try to cut some vegetables, the thing that made this situation okay was that they had an expiration date. Their entire romance or whatever this was, was framed by an exceptional situation and maybe could be treated as a tolerable anomaly within in.

“Hey, uh,” he started, because somehow the thought about the limited time Dean still had (on this earth and with Cas) started to weigh too heavily on him and he needed a distraction. “Did you know that Sam and I are part of an organization called the Men of Letters?” He looked over his shoulder to where the chopping had stopped.

“No,” Castiel answered bluntly. “I thought you were a hunter.”

“That too. We only found out about being legacies when we dug deep into my dad’s research and found something which surprisingly linked our granddad to the world of the supernatural too. I mean we’re mostly just squatting in one of their Bunkers without doing anything else. Only members left over in the States after the others got themselves killed in a demon raid a couple of decades back.” Castiel hummed at that and went back to dealing with cucumbers.

“I know them. They are called Wächter der Schriften here. I don’t interact with them much. I sometimes gave them advice in the 19th century but there hasn’t been any need for me to get in touch with them since.”

“Not even when that demon summit was happening ten years ago?” Dean asked and again, the knife was put down. There was no particular surprise or suspicion on Castiel’s face when Dean chanced to look at him.

“Those summits are every ten years. I feel no need to attend because I will only get to hear the same thing since the 18th century,” Castiel told him and Dean remembered the note about there being frustration on the dark side about Switzerland being off limits.

“Yeah, I’m sure they aren’t happy that you forced an embargo on demon deals. Loss of business, I reckon,” Dean snorted though the idea of grumpy demons amused him. He saw a small smile flicker over Castiel’s face too and then he picked up the knife again. Dean watched his graceful fingers wield the blade, somewhat uncertainly but without fumbling too much anymore. Dean turned his eyes away and cleared his throat. “Well, we’re going to attend the summit next week,” Dean declared and that got Castiel to stop at once, the last cut down of the blade sounding loud as it hit the cutting board. Dean lifted his eyebrow, not sure if that should worry him. “You’ve got a problem with that, Cas?”

Dean put the patty into the frying pan, the meat starting to sizzle at once, filling the kitchen with a new fragrance. Castiel had a sour expression on his face and Dean knew that he was not pleased about Dean’s plan but he didn’t say anything. Dean wasn’t sure why that bothered him, but they continued to prepare the food in silence.

“Come on, talk to me, Cas,” Dean whined when they were sitting down at the table and Castiel glared at the food like it had personally offended him. “You don’t like the idea that I’m going there.”

“I don’t think I can convince you not to go?” Castiel asked instead of explaining what fault he saw in Dean’s plan.

“Nope,” Dean told him. “This is my last shot, Cas. We’ll go there, try to find a way to get my ass out of the fire and if we fail?” He looked across the table towards Castiel, finding an unhappy expression on his face. “Well, then I’ll go home to die.”

That certainly wasn’t a very cheerful way to start dinner, but discussions about death over food was par for the course whereas Dean was concerned. Even though he had wanted to keep things like this out, he couldn’t help it. “Eat your burger, Cas,” he ordered and Castiel did as he was told, lifting it and taking a bite. The gloomy look was wiped off his face and he made an appreciative little sound and then continued eating. “Good, right? Ever since I’ve got a proper kitchen I’ve been cooking for Sam and me. Burgers are my specialty.”

“They’re good. Very good, thank you, Dean,” the basilisk praised and like that the oppressive atmosphere was pushed to the side. It wasn’t gone and Dean knew that Cas (or even himself) would bring it up again. But for now, they enjoyed their meal.

* * *

Dean almost sank down into a sea of pillows and cushions. Castiel was warm next to him, their shoulders brushing comfortably. There was a cup of coffee in front of Dean and he felt… cozy. Rested.

“If I promise not to intervene in any way to harm you or your brother,” Castiel said out of the blue, startling Dean out of his little half slumber. He quickly turned his head toward Castiel, who returned his gaze, not looking away anymore. “Would you tell me about your deal?” Dean felt himself tense instantly. When Dean didn’t answer Castiel seemed to take this as a no and didn’t press. Dean let a long moment pass, unsure what to do now. Castiel apparently wasn’t disturbed at all, nothing had changed in his easy demeanor. Dean however knew that he had to make a decision.

“I don’t know if I can trust your promise,” Dean finally admitted and Castiel’s eyes darted to him before he looked back down at his hands.

“Yes, I suppose you can’t,” he agreed and there was still no judgment in it. Castiel didn’t demand or push or judge.

“It’s not only my life on the line, but also Sam’s,” Dean explained, but then he recalled that Sam wanted him to tell Castiel, now more than ever. “It’s never been about me. I’m just a tool,” he managed to say through clenched teeth. That got Castiel’s attention and he studied him, as if he could get the answers out of Dean if he just stared enough. “I don’t want to claim that I made my peace with going to hell, but if I could just make sure that Sam won’t follow I would to it.” Dean took a shuddering breath and braced his elbows on his knees. He put his face into his palms, trying to keep the rest of the words in. Castiel would judge, he didn’t want to ruin this fragile thing between them.

A hand slowly pressed against the middle of his back, softly but intent. Dean could feel the vibration of Castiel’s magic hum through him.

“What do you mean? Dean, why do you think that you’re just a tool?” he heard Castiel ask. Dean bit his lips. Keep it in, just keep silent. “I’ll go get you a blanket, you’re shivering,” Castiel said, but Dean didn’t want to lose that warm anchor resting against his back.

“10 years ago. Hell, I don’t know how many years ago,” he said and Castiel hesitated for only a second before he sat back down. “I don’t know who started it or when, but when Sam was just a baby hell put a claim on him. They fed him demon blood, just a bit, but enough to change him. The demon killed everyone in our family over the years, just because he wanted Sam. He said he wanted him as hell’s new boy king, a leader of armies that would change the very fabric of hell.” Dean huffed, humorlessly and rubbed his knuckles against his forehead. Castiel was still silent. He was getting his story now, no matter what reward he would give Dean for this, he was not going to interrupt until Dean was done. “Azazel, the guy pulling the strings, knew that Sam was stronger than he expected. Exceeding all his brightest wishes, but the thing is that Sam’s good. Damn, that kid’s good, Cas. I think Azazel knew that Sam would not just do what he wanted him to. So he needed something better than the lure of power. He, uh… He let Sam die. And I couldn’t…”

“You did exactly what hell wanted by offering your soul in exchange for Sam’s life,” Castiel continued when Dean felt like he couldn’t talk around the lump in his throat. It had been ten years but Dean could still feel the weight of Sam’s body in his arms, the soul crushing despair he felt when he realized just what he had lost.

“Yeah… I didn’t know right away. We killed Azazel, seemingly stopped his evil master plan. And I was just a guy, right? One of those desperate fuckers who sold his soul and would pay for it. And I wasn’t… I mean I wasn’t alright with that. I knew that I’d go down swinging if I had to. And we knew that demon deals could be broken, if you just found the right demon. Over the years we tore our way through every crossroads demon we could get our hands on, trying to get to the person that held my deal. And after a lot of searching we heard whispers that a demon called Lilith had it. And it seemed like an easy case, you know? We had a name and we had a weapon to put a hole through her head. We just had to find her,” Dean explained and sighed deeply. He straightened slightly and Castiel got up wordlessly when Dean didn’t find the right words to continue. Some silent moments passed, where Dean thought back to those years, the years of endless roads, of learning how to torture information out of demons, of trying to work with Ruby. He remembered the desperation and fear that had been his constant companion. He looked up when he heard Castiel’s quiet steps approach and before long he was handed another hot cup of coffee. Castiel took a seat next to Dean and while he didn’t smile at him encouragingly, there was understanding in his expression. Empathy even. Maybe it was this that made him go on.

“While searching for Lilith I figured out why hell wanted me to make my deal in the first place. Hell needed leverage. They knew that if they dangled my soul in front of Sam, Sam would do everything he could to save me. Even if that meant going into hell himself to become its king. Because then he’d have the power to let me off the hook. Literally.” Dean snorted and shook his head. It sounded ludicrous but he knew that Sam would do it. Hell, he would do it for Sam if their places were reversed. “So when I found out, I panicked. There was no way that I wanted Sam to become hell’s new boss. I spent a year away from Sam, thinking that if we spent the rest of my deal apart, then surely he would stop to care about his idiotic, absent big brother so much. But Sam’s stubborn. Sam tried to learn as much as he could and Ruby, a demon who claimed that she was on our side, helped him. Sam got full on demon blood, which apparently would help him kill Lilith. And it did, but for a price. Due to the blood, Sam had become demonic enough that he could just march into hell without dying, without a deal. He could just open the doors and go inside.”

“He’s still got powers… I could see them, even if they could not move me,” Castiel said quietly and Dean nodded. “But what about your contract? I assume Lilith didn’t hand it to you before her death.”

“No… My contract was lost with Lilith and Ruby’s deaths. But we at least decided to face this crap together, and for the last couple of years we tried to find what we could. But there’s nothing. Nobody knows where my contract is or if they do they won’t spill. Nobody knows how to break it. I was ready to die, Cas, when we heard about the basilisk eggs.” It was like speaking had opened a valve that had quickly drained all his energy. He didn’t want to look at Cas now, he didn’t want to move either.

“Maybe you need to sleep,” Castiel said tentatively, picking up on the fact that he wouldn’t get anything else out of Dean or that it was pointless to discuss it now. Castiel’s dreaded judgment had to wait. “You know where the guest bedroom is.” Dean nodded once and then he felt warm lips press against his forehead. “Good night, Dean.” 


	7. Chapter 7

No dreams of hell plagued Dean’s sleep. It was too deep and dark, born out of exhaustion. Waking up was hard and he felt the discomfort of a lack of orientation settle low in his stomach. His first thought was hospital room, because everything was white and bare, but then he noticed the flecks of green. He had to blink a few times and wipe the sleep out of his eyes, but once he did he saw that he was in a room full of plants. And with vision came clarity and memory.

He was in Castiel’s guest bedroom. He felt shame build up inside of him almost at once. He had told him everything and then promptly fallen asleep. He couldn’t remember making a sad spectacle out of himself by crying which was, all things considered, a small mercy.

He still wore whatever he hadn’t managed to take off before falling into bed, so Castiel hadn’t meddled with him while he was asleep. Dean pulled on his other sock and then the rest of his clothes and while he relied on his muscle memory to carry him through this, his mind was free to calm down. By the time he was done, he had steeled himself to whatever would happen now.

But the basilisk had apparently left his nest. Dean wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or upset at the postponing of their confrontation. He knew that there would be one and that Castiel would pass judgment on him eventually. He tried to get the memory of empathy out of his head. It didn’t matter if Castiel was moved to a tear or two by his tragedy. The question was whether Castiel deemed Dean worthy of help.

Dean sat down on the small kitchen table and waited. It was still fairly early in the morning, so maybe Cas had dashed down to the bakery to get something. Dean waited and drummed his fingers on the table top with growing unease before he got up and made coffee.

After coffee he went to search for any post-it or notes and check whether there was a text message. There was nothing. Dean tried to push away a growing sense of agitation. He didn’t have to act like this, left weak and unsure by Castiel’s absence. There was good in this: he was a hunter and he was left unsupervised in a monster’s nest. That’s what he had needed for weeks now. Dean put down the coffee cup and started searching. The fridge revealed a carton of free range, regional eggs but they seemed normal enough. The cupboards were still pretty empty. There was nothing downstairs, nothing in the drawers or cupboards or shelves. There seemed to be no loose floor boards or hidden panels. He even dug into some of the plant pots, finding nothing but roots. Dean washed his hands before he clenched them in momentary indecision. Then he opened the door to the staircase leading to the attic.

The nest was as Dean had last seen it and while he felt a bit of apprehension at having to disturb it, he still went to reach into the nest. He did find some random objects, like a jar of honey, some trashy novels, an iPad which had no more power, some gold object which seemed valuable enough but no egg. Frustrated he continued his search for hidden spaces before he checked out the painted door. It was unlocked and opened to a library of sorts. The wooden shelves were piled high with folders and loose papers and some chests even. Dean sat down in the comfortable armchair for a moment and looked around. There was a window and it showed out over the roof of the buildings on the other side of the street. After a moment he got up again and started rummaging. He found a lot of documents, some of them official looking. Houses that belonged to him, credit balances from bank accounts with staggering numbers on it, copies of donations that went out to animal shelters. Dean snorted and then opened a chest, finding some IDs and birth certificates in it. The oldest he found was for one Jacob Neumann and the newest, just from 2008, had the name Jimmy Novak on it. Dean frowned at it but then he rummaged some more, but other than subscriptions to beekeeper journals there was nothing weird or interesting in here. Nothing even remotely resembled a basilisk egg. Dean wasn’t sure what exactly he had hoped to find, but it was still slightly disappointing to find nothing. He made his way back down. Maybe there were other nests after all, maybe Castiel kept them in a vault. Or maybe he simply didn’t have any. He sat back down in the kitchen and waited some more.

The sun was already fully up by the time his mobile phone vibrated.

**“Hey, Dean! Guess who’s awake? Me! Sam asks if we can all go have breakfast together and then go to the bunker? Also, maybe I should warn you that Sam’s been making a really sour face since he came here just to find you gone. And you’re still gone. Maybe I should congratulate you on getting laid?? If you’re still cuddling, then sorry! Let me know!”** Dean sighed. He got up from the table and went to the entrance hall. He got into his jacket and pulled on his shoes. He didn’t have a key, so he left the door unlocked.

“Morgen,” he greeted one of the neighbors who was down in the entrance hall collecting the mail. The woman looked at him in surprise before she wished him a good day. Dean didn’t fault her the suspicious look.

When he got out into the street he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He tried not to feel too disheartened. He couldn’t have expected that much out of Cas, he himself had no illusions about what he was. Just a hunter who had messed up and would pay for it. He had just wished- No.

Castiel’s silence was answer enough.

* * *

While Charlie was keen to know all the details and Sam continued to be disgruntled the two of them quickly picked up on Dean’s mood and let him be.

“So you told him?” Sam asked quietly while Charlie was checking out the bunker. Dean shrugged. “And he was gone when you woke up…”

“Yeah.” Dean answered roughly and he knew that Sam’s face was changing into a look of pity even without having to look at it.

“Dean, that doesn’t need to mean that-“

“Can it, Sam. I know what it means and I’m good,” he said and showed Sam a confident, unperturbed grin. Sam’s face changed into something more neutral but not convinced. He didn’t need Sam convinced, he just needed him off his case. “And what does it matter? We have this convention thing going. The egg is due to be delivered to our front door any day now. We have what we need.”

“Yeah… Maybe you’re right,” Sam said quietly and then he straightened. “I’m not sure Cas could have helped us in the first place.” Dean crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head.

“What do you mean?” Sam looked uncertain for a moment, then he slapped his hand against Dean’s shoulder and beckoned him to follow him to the library.

“I found some pretty weird stuff, like Cas centered weird. I made some calls and tried to check things out, but the files are in German.” Dean sat down at the table, while Charlie was giving him the thumbs up even as she fiddled with the dinosaur of a computer. He pulled the files towards him. “Like I said. German. I found someone who could translate them, but it’ll take a while.”

“Nah, I got it,” Dean said and could feel Sam’s eyes bore into his forehead. “What?” he asked innocently and looked at Sam over the folder. “I can read this.”

“You. Read German,” he said dully and Dean nodded.

“Really? What does it say?” Charlie asked excitedly, effectively interrupting Sam’s glaring. Dean looked back down.

“They’re records about basilisks they could find. Including legends and past encounters with Castiel, both by hunters and guardians of letters, as well as some other people. Patterns, irregularities, comparisons. At least that’s what I’m getting from the introduction,” Dean said.

“We’ve been in Switzerland for close to 5 weeks now. And you couldn’t have bothered to tell me that you know the language?!” Sam shouted, but he was the fuming kind of angry that would quickly evaporate. So Dean shrugged. “Dean, you made me order all the food!”

“And it was hilarious,” Dean told him and the irritated groan was a sign that Sam would get over it soon enough. “And how did you think I was reading the basilisk info anyway? Everything was in German, college boy.”

“Whatever, you’re a multilingual genius, we know it now.” Dean grinned. “Point is, that I wasn’t getting anywhere with the translations. So I looked around some more and I found a register of members and called the branch leader of the Swiss Men of Letters,” Sam said, “I didn’t tell her about the basilisk research though.”

“Was it a good idea to tell them about us?” Dean asked dubiously.

“I didn’t know why not. I mean we _are_ Men of Letters.”

“And women,” Charlie commented, “I mean I am. Unfortunately you two aren’t. Maybe we should also change the name to something less sexist,” she mused but the Winchesters ignored her.

“She was of course surprised to know that legacies were around from America. I gave her some family background and that was enough for her. She said we were welcome to come to the meeting in Strasbourg as official spectators. I sent some mails to the European main branch in Poland. Once we’re approved they get us batches delivered within two days.”

“That’s efficient,” Dean commented, “so what. We’re now just… officially part of the Guardians of Letters network again? I’m so not going to attend any meetings.” Sam laughed and shook his head. It wasn’t like this idea really bothered Dean, but he still didn’t want to open up their bunker or the way that they were doing things to the scrutiny of a bunch of stuffy European people.

“I don’t think you’ll have to anytime soon, the American branch has been given up after all. I doubt they want to come snooping around,” Sam told him. “I think it’s a good thing of course. I can’t really trust them but I did tell her we were interested in demons mostly and demon deals, how to break them and such. Purely theoretical of course, because demons had been our dad’s specialty. But if I understood her correctly the European Men of Letters don’t really have to deal with demons, so she doesn’t know if anyone would know anything. Maybe in the German branch because they have a library of volumes dedicated to demonology.”

“Maybe we can get Bela on it?” Charlie suggested but Dean shook his head.

“Let’s just go to that convention,” he decided and nobody contradicted him. Sam offered to make them some coffee and Charlie ditched them to check out the technology of the place. Dean was left alone with the files. He pulled out his phone and set it next to him on the table. There was still no message from Castiel. He wrinkled his nose but then he opened the files again and started to read.

 

> **From the Chronicles of the Men of Letters**
> 
> **Extracts from “On the odd happenings that have visited the city of Basel in this and the past century. By S. Münster”**
> 
> _The city has been shaken apart by the earthquake. Rebuilding is going well, but something is not right. Something eerie has entered this city. We have heard reports from wanderers coming from the East. A gate has been opened. We don’t know what came out or where it has come from, since nobody survived and nothing but sparks of energy remain. What is it? Did it come here?_
> 
> _\--_
> 
> _The disappearances continue and we have issued a mandate to control who leaves their houses at night. We fear though that the danger does not lurk in the darkness, but in the belly of the earth._
> 
> _\--_
> 
> _We have sent a message to the guard, asking for experts. We have ruled out dragons. Whatever it is, it takes indiscriminately and is not interested in gold. Dragons would have been desirable since we have swords to slay them and knights to do it._
> 
> _\--_
> 
> _We have found odd stone formations and the grass is starting to dry out in places. The water is not affected by unnatural disease and no other draught has hit us. There is no sudden prosperity to make us believe that one of the heathens has found interest in our city._
> 
> _I do not like to say it, but all the signs point towards a Basilisk, that great beast from distant lands. God give us strength. We have no weapons to fend it off._
> 
> _\--_
> 
> _A bright star has crossed the sky this past night. We worry. Is it a portent of greater calamity? The gates to hell have been quiet but I feel tremors beneath my feet. Something is going to happen._
> 
> _\--_
> 
> _The disappearances have stopped._

 

Dean startled when a big cup of coffee was deposited in front of him with a loud clang. Charlie was sitting in front of him and raised her eyebrows. Sam had also found his way back into the meeting room.

“So, anything useful in there?” she asked and Dean rubbed a dry palm over his face. The words had started swimming in front of his eyes and yeah, he really needed a cup of coffee.

“Yes… I’ve found out that the city had actually suffered from the usual things associated to basilisks. Odd things happening below ground, people disappearing, rubbles of stones which probably had been people, people who died from poisoning after they attacked some beast in their cellars. Uh, what else. Right, grass that had dried up, mirrors which have ended up shattered,” Dean said, counting the things off his fingers. “They were pretty sure that they had a basilisk problem. But in the 15th century?” Dean lifted his hands and shook his head. “Everything just stopped.”

“You mean, someone killed the beast?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, or _something_ ,” Dean said and turned around a book. It was written in German type but fortunately Dean had figured out how to read it after a lot of guess work. “Once it stopped they managed to track down and engage an expert who had slain minor basilisks before. He checked it out and found that they did have a basilisk infestation, but that something took care of it. All the nests were empty, but something was still around. There was no sign that it had left but they couldn’t get a hold of it.”

“So… You think Cas is the second basilisk? If he’s one of the kings of the species, maybe his underling pissed him off and he took him out?” Charlie suggested. Sam meanwhile remained quiet, a look of concentration on his face.

“Or maybe he really isn’t a basilisk.”

“Yeah…” Dean pulled out a list of things he had written down. “So let’s say Cas arrived in the 15th century and killed whatever was terrorizing this city. There were records of a comet if I understand correctly, just before the basilisk stopped killing. The regularity of Castiel’s magic has been noted, as well as that the ward against demons that was erected by him. He apparently causes some electrical interferences at times. They also vaguely know what he looks like.”

“Which is?” Charlie wondered

“Human. Only human. There’s nothing about him that remotely looks like a basilisk.” Sam pulled the list out from underneath Dean’s hands and scanned it. “That’s a print out of the archive entry you made me write up, including some new stuff I learnt the last time I was at his place.”

“Has been here for centuries, magic is always renewed on a Thursday, human shape, eats and drinks, has a nest, uses a human alias (Jimmy Novak) to make purchases, (likes bees?), has plants in his house (all healthy looking), can dream walk, can teleport, seems to have wings, powerful enough to keep demons away,” Sam quoted, his frown still not easing up. “I think we can add to that that he’s immune to my powers, that he can’t be killed like a pagan god and that mirrors don’t harm him.” Charlie had her iPad propped up and was clicking through a list of monsters that they knew. Meanwhile Sam pulled out their father’s journal and started leafing through it. Dean knew that they wouldn’t come up with anything. He ran some of his keywords through the old computer but all results pointed at nothing in particular.

“Hey… Uh…,” Sam started after a long silence and Dean knew that tone. It was Sam remembering something big and not sure if he liked it. Dean was already feeling queasy, the knowledge that Castiel had probably deceived them sitting heavily in his gut. He wasn’t sure if he was starting to get angry. “You remember that one case we worked, years ago? With Bela? With the ghost ship?” Dean moaned at the memory. “I was reciting a spell to make the dead guy manifest.”

“Yeah? And?” Dean asked, watching how Sam turned their father’s journal around and pointed to a page. Next to the tip of his finger was an invocation that started with a couple of names.

“Aziel, Lamisniel, Rabam, Castiel.” Dean repeated and frowned. “Castiel.”

“Doesn’t have to be the same dude?” Charlie offered, typing away at her iPad.

“It’s not exactly a common name,” Sam answered, “and to be used in a spell like this…? He could be something ancient and powerful. A spirit probably.”

“Or an angel,” Charlie said. Both Winchesters looked to her and found Charlie glimpsing over the edge of her iPad with an insecure look. “I’m quoting Wikipedia here so we might have to check with Bobby or Rufus, but it says that Cassiel is the Latin name of an archangel. Blah blah blah. Unlike many other angels, Cassiel is known for simply watching the events of the cosmos unfold with little interference. He is the angel of solitude and tears, and is said to preside over the deaths of kings. Variants include Castiel.”

Dean was staring at Charlie, unable to say anything but: “no way.” He remembered Castiel’s words: I only watch. It gets lonely.

“Dude!” Sam said and he slammed the journal shut, causing Dean to flinch, but Castiel’s words were still ringing in his ears.

“I mean Wikipedia Castiel presides over Saturday and not Thursday, but you do know that the basilisk was often called the king of beasts? Basileus literally means king.”

“This is nuts,” Dean decided when he didn’t know what else to say. He pulled out his phone and dialed before he could second-guess himself. He stormed out of the bunker, Sam and Charlie on his heels. The other two watched with wide eyes as Dean waited for the phone to be picked up.

_“Dean?”_

“Screw you!” Dean shouted into the phone, “you couldn’t bother telling us that you’re not a basilisk?!”

_“What?”_ Castiel’s voice sounded genuinely surprised. Dean wasn’t buying the entire angel thing, but the case seemed to be clear as day here. No matter what Castiel was, purgatory beast supreme or demon from the deepest, badest pits of hell, he certainly was no basilisk. _“Dean, I don’t understand, what do you mean?”_

“We did some digging and there’s no way that you are a basilisk, okay? We know, so why don’t you just stop lying and tell us what’s up.”

_“I don’t… Dean I’m not lying. I’m the guardian of this town. I’m not anything. I’m merely Castiel,”_ he said and something about his voice made Dean think that he was not lying. But he couldn’t trust his gut feeling on this.

“Yeah well, you’re clearly something,” he hissed.

_“Why… why don’t you come home and you can explain what you found,”_ Castiel offered and Dean wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but he hesitated. Charlie and Sam had obviously listened in.

“You should go,” Sam mouthed and Dean groaned.

“Fine. I’ll text you,” he said but before Castiel could reply he terminated the call. There was tense silence and Dean made his way back into the bunker where he tossed the phone back onto the table in irritation.

“So… your summer flirt might have just been upgraded from dragon-like monster to archangel? Not too bad for your first supernatural romance,” Charlie said and even though she was careful around Dean’s explosive mood, her voice was cheerful and her expression open and excited.

“Charlie, whatever that dick is, it’s not an angel. Hunters have been around for centuries and we’ve never, ever met an angel,” he argued but Charlie still grinned. “Seriously! You can’t believe in this shit.” He turned around to Sam, but his brother also seemed excited. “Dude! Back me up.”

“Uh, yes I guess that’s true? But he _could_ be an angel? There’s enough lore to back their existence up? It doesn’t have to mean that angels are cute, fluffy guys. They can be just as terrible as every other monster, but maybe just far too clever to let themselves be caught. And we do have angel feathers in our storage back at home.”

“That’s just a name, Sam.” Sam shrugged.

“In any case, I think we should come with you to Castiel’s place,” he suggested and Dean instantly balked at that.

“No,” he said firmly and Sam raised his eyebrows until Charlie nudged him with her foot.

“This might be a good opportunity for Dean to get laid so we should best leave him to it and prepare stuff and do research like proper nerds. Dean’s a big boy, doesn’t need the cavalry for a date. Even if it’s a supernatural one,” she said and Dean was ready to thank her for having his back, but he didn’t like the suggestion that he went to Cas just to get laid. He had no idea if getting laid was even on the table. He wasn’t really into the whole angry sex thing.

Sam looked pretty miffed about this, but in the end he agreed to let Dean deal with it.

“Oh, Sam. You’re only upset because you’re the only one not currently dating a supernatural creature. Maybe he’ll get lucky and find someone at the demon convention. A witch maybe, or a vampire. Maybe something equally tall like you,” Charlie teased. Dean huffed out a laugh when he watched Sam’s expression become even sourer. It eased some of the tension inside of him. Eventually it didn’t matter what Castiel was. Because he didn’t need him to solve his problems. In just a couple of days they would be out of this boring little country. Even if Dean dragged the same chains back home he had come here to remove.

* * *

Dean thundered up the stairs, not caring if Castiel’s neighbors greatly disapproved of the noise at this time of day. Castiel looked… disheveled for lack of a better term. Like he hadn’t slept in days. His hair was all over the place and his suit was more rumpled than usual. Dean grabbed a fistful of the fabric of his shirt at the shoulder and moved him to the door leading up to the nest.

“Get dressed in something more comfortable looking,” he ordered and didn’t stay to watch Cas follow the command. When he was in the kitchen to meddle with the water cooker, he heard the floor boards above him creak. By the time he had made coffee Dean was still angry and Cas still looked terrible, in a painfully human way. Maybe it made Dean even angrier. The hold he had on his coffee cup was white-knuckled and he had to calm himself down so that he wouldn’t throw it at the wall.

“I don’t understand what you were saying,” Castiel finally admitted, breaking the silence between them. His eyes were a bit clearer now and he was doing a good job at moving his face into the usual neutral look.

“We found a lot of evidence that you’re not a basilisk, Cas. It seems like you slayed the thing haunting this city back in the 15th century. But the MO of the monster that settled in then was completely different than the basilisk,” Dean explained.

“We don’t all have to be bad.” Dean supposed that it could be true but it was hardly convincing.

“You don’t burn plants, you don’t turn me to stone with your eyes alone, you aren’t killed by a mirror. Those are some of the key features of a basilisk and believe me Cas, at least one of these things should somewhat apply to you.” Castiel shook his head. “ _Can_ you turn people into stone by merely looking at them?” Castiel fixed him with a glare, his blue eyes shining unnaturally bright. There was a moment of tense silence between them until Castiel forced out an answer.

“No.” It was pretty much the last nail in the coffin as far as Dean was concerned. Castiel was no basilisk.

“What do you remember about the basilisk you slayed in the 15th century?” Dean asked, simply going with the assumption that this was what had happened. Castiel wasn’t contradicting it after all.

“Nothing. I have no recollection of this. I was simply here, I’ve always been here.”

“So? What about before the 15th century?”

“There is _nothing_ before the 15 th century for me,” Castiel told him but a look of consternation crossed his face as if that was actually a particularly nasty realization for him. He watched different emotions flicker over Castiel’s face until he took a deep breath and seemed to settle on something. “I am the guardian of this city. I have never been anything else.” Dean assumed that this was the truth as far as Castiel was concerned and he wasn’t sure if he should tell him what he had found or if he should hold on to that information. Maybe Castiel was happy being the silent watcher of this city. Maybe there was a reason why he no longer wanted to be what he had been before. Not an archangels, that was ridiculous Dean told himself, but something else. Something bigger than the mere king of beasts.

“Okay, man,” Dean agreed and saw some of the tension leave Castiel’s shoulders and he shot him a relieved look before he could check it. “But where were you all this time? I bare my soul to you and you flutter away.” Castiel colored slightly at that, which was somewhat funny to watch.

“I had to prepare,” he said and Dean raised an eyebrow. “I am going to Strasbourg as well. I will attend the summit.”

“Why? It’s not like I need your help any longer,” Dean said casually and saw how Castiel tilted his head to the side in confusion. “We got what we need, apart from a demon of course.” It was half bluff and half desperate hope and he really didn’t want to give Cas the impression that he was depending on him. Especially not now, when it was clear that they had accepted this case on a lie. There was no basilisk here, the Men of Letters bestiary was probably right that they were long extinct.

“That is alright with me. I will attend to stay on top of events. I had no idea of the demonic plan you told me about and that makes me uneasy,” Castiel explained and while there was a weight behind his words that Dean couldn’t decipher the pout on his face was pretty telling.

“So what? Does it upset the balance and make you grouchy?” he teased.

“Yes, it does. Very much so,” Castiel agreed and Dean laughed. He put his arm around Castiel and pulled him close, pressing a kiss to his lips.

“You’re an idiot and I’m still angry at you for lying.”

“I wasn’t lying.”

“Then I’m angry at you for being ignorant about who you are,” Dean amended and felt Castiel squirm a bit in his hold, most likely to protest. But Dean held him firm and even though he assumed Castiel was strong enough to shake him off, he didn’t try. He sighed and settled against Dean’s side.

“I will miss you if you leave,” Castiel spoke into the silence. “These last weeks were the best.”

“And you haven’t even seen my skills in the bedroom yet,” Dean joked but Castiel actually seemed to contemplate that.

“That’s a shame,” he said and pulled his legs up to place them over Dean’s. He put his arms around Dean’s neck and kissed his cheek. It was so chaste, all of Castiel’s touches were careful, as if Dean was made of something very precious.

“Well. We’ve got time,” he offered and Castiel chuckled against his skin. He pressed another kiss to Dean’s cheek. He put his palm to Castiel’s ass and pushed slightly, guiding him up until he had a knee on either side of his legs and settled down comfortably on Dean’s lap.

“Alright”. He breathed a kissed on Dean’s skin.

* * *

Maybe Dean had somehow thought that the chance of getting laid was on the table after all. The moment he had Castiel in his lap, half of their clothes gone, he was glad for his foresight to pack condoms and lube. Stumbling and shedding clothes, they had made their way from Castiel’s boat of a sofa to the guestroom. The bedspring creaked lightly as Dean guided Castiel into small movements of his hips, which felt wonderful even through the fabric of their pants.

He covered Castiel’s body with his own, caging him in with arms and capturing every hitched breath that slipped past Castiel’s lips. He let his lips trail down his jaw and his hands slipped into Castiel’s too big slacks. Castiel lifted himself off the bed with ease when Dean pulled down the pants and opened his legs for Dean to settle back down once he had removed his own boxers. From there on it was a brand new feeling for Dean, pressing down on Castiel’s hips, feeling him move against his dick. The sensation wasn’t as weird as he had thought and he rutted against Castiel a couple of times, happy to drown in the sounds that he got to hear.

“Can you,” Castiel started but then he gasped. Dean pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at the creature below him. His hair was a mess and Dean couldn’t hold back a laugh when he saw Castiel’s disgruntled face. “Why did you stop?”

“Because you want something,” he said and then he reached down to give Castiel’s dick a small squeeze that had him squirm slightly. “More of this?”

“No,” Castiel said and looked at Dean challengingly. Dean was never one to turn down a challenge and slowly trailed his finger down, down until his finger was pressed to his hole. “Yes.” Castiel agreed to Dean’s wordless question.  Dean nodded and it didn’t take long for him to pour lube over his fingers. He lowered himself back down next to Cas, keeping his slick fingers were they were, just gently rubbing and pressing. When he slipped a finger inside, Castiel sighed in relief.

“Did this before?” Dean whispered into Castiel’s hair, pressing kisses against the side of his head and then his cheek.

“I know how to masturbate,” Castiel replied breathlessly but still managed to sound grouchy.

“Yeah? What do you think about?” Dean challenged and slipped in another finger.

“You, this,” he heard in reply and pressed his lips to Castiel’s throat, sucking and hoping to mark him up, leave his dirty handprints all over this being. Dean slipped in another finger.

“I’m going to give you what you want,” Dean promised and pulled out his fingers after a couple of minutes. Dean moved Castiel’s legs, pulling them around his hips. He put on a condom and lubed up his dick. “Alright, baby?” Castiel didn’t say anything, but the arousal was written over his face, flushed red and with wide eyes. Dean pushed inside the tight and perfect heat. He didn’t even try to hold back a groan and neither did he try to stay still. Castiel made no sign that he needed time to adjust, he started moving his hips, trying to pull Dean in deeper. Dean had no patience to draw it out. It had been too long since he had been lost in another person’s willing body. He grabbed Castiel’s arms and pushed them over his head, holding him there firmly and pressing down. The pace he chose was quick and hard and for the fraction of a second he wondered if he shouldn’t make this soft and sweet instead. But Castiel urged him on with his moans and how his fingers clung to Dean’s hands and his own attempts to meet all of Dean’s thrusts.

Dean could feel pressure building fast inside of him. Dean let go of Castiel’s hands and held on to his hips to push in harder and faster. Castiel buried his hands into the bedspread but after a while he reached out to grasp Dean’s arms and shoulders, squeezing. Dean looked up, seeing the expression of bliss on his face. Somehow that made Dean almost falter in his movement, because he could put an expression like this on a creature like Cas. Sure, maybe this was only sex, but he held a power over him in this one heated moment, that allowed him to move Castiel however he wanted him, to pleasure him and take his own pleasure in return. Castiel’s grip on his shoulders tightened and Dean watched him bite his lips until they were a hot red. He watched how he shut his eyes and tensed up as his orgasm washed over him. Dean could feel him tighten around him but Castiel was soon back to moving, his moans still as encouraging as before. It didn’t take Dean long to tumble over the edge and he made sure to push in as far as he could and held on.

He breathed loudly into the silent room, not seeing anything or feeling anything but the explosion of sensation crashing over him and the heat of Castiel’s body.

Coming down from that was almost hard and he was reluctant to open his eyes but eager to see Castiel’s reaction. When he did Castiel looked completely at ease. His hands had flopped back down on the mattress and were resting next to his head. He had his eyes closed and a small smile on his face.

“I guess you liked that.”

“I liked that a lot,” Castiel said and a tiny frown creased up his forehead when Dean slipped out. Dean disposed of the condom but didn’t care about getting cleaned up. He was tired and sated and easily slipped back into bed. He shoved at Castiel until he was lying on his side and Dean could slip in behind him, pressing his front to Castiel’s back.

“I did too. But I almost expected some explosions and lightshows or something. Something… Not human maybe.” He felt Castiel’s chuckle as a soft vibration.

“Does that disturb you? That I’m so human even though I’m not?” Castiel asked and turned to look over his shoulder. Dean frowned at him and then he opened his mouth to put his teeth to Castiel’s neck, biting down slightly.

“Dude, that’s too heavy for pillow talks,” Dean complained after he had let go of Castiel again and pressed some lazy kisses to his skin.

“My apologies,” Castiel said and Dean could hear the smile in his voice. “This is my first pillow talk.” Dean laughed.

“Let’s just be quiet and enjoy this,” Dean suggested and Castiel took a hold of Dean’s hand he had pressed against Castiel’s chest and gave it a squeeze.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean returned from Castiel’s place to find a big parcel taking up the majority of the space on the little wooden table. Both Sam and Charlie hovered around it with looks of indecision and anxiousness.

“Look who’s showing up again. Done getting laid?” Charlie managed to joke, but she was clutching her iPad to her chest like a shield. Dean winked at her and she rolled her eyes fondly.

“What have you got there?”

“That’s the basilisk egg,” Sam said and Dean lifted his eyebrows.

“That’s a lot bigger than I thought,” he commented and started opening the package.

“Bela said that most of it is just packaging,” Charlie explained and the way she held her iPad up suggested that she was filming the unwrapping. She usually got excited whenever they stumbled over something neat in the bunker, so he probably shouldn’t be surprised. Inside the carton was a lot of protective crap and then another package. Removing that revealed a small wooden chest, like any regular box that housed cursed objects. There were no symbols on it and it opened without a key so he assumed that it was mostly fancy decoration. Within the chest was a lot of velvet fabric until he managed to come across some kind of goblet with a domed lid on it, giving it the shape of an egg. The thing looked like a prop out of a movie, but whether the gold and the rubies were fake or not, the thing was heavy and not too shabby to look at. He opened the small clasp and found more padding inside before the object came into view.

“That’s it…?” Charlie asked, sounding more baffled than disappointed. Dean didn’t lift the thing out of its case but the basilisk egg looked like any regular chicken egg. It was just like the picture Bela had sent them. It had a white shell that glimmered a bit and well… it stank.

“It’s like it has been lying in a heap of dung,” Sam complained with a pinched expression. Dean quickly closed the lid again and Charlie went to open the window.

“Well… we have to believe that it’s the real deal. Lots of magic ingredients don’t look like much,” Dean said, trying to keep his spirits up. His brother’s and Charlie’s expressions continued to be slightly unconvinced but Dean clapped his hands. “So! What about the badges?”

“Yes, we’ve got them all,” Sam said and pulled something out of an envelope. The badges were actually just that. Regular card badges with the star of Aquarius on it and their names. “They also don’t look like much but I think they have some magical properties… I’ve also read through the guidelines for the summit. It’s a no weapons, no magic kind of deal. There are some guards or something there which will make sure that the ban is enforced.”

“No way am I going in there without Ruby’s knife!” Dean argued. The mere thought was appalling.

“Hey… You’ve got me as a weapon in case anything goes south,” Sam reminded him and that didn’t really put Dean at ease, but it was true. “If we’re attacked despite the rules, I will retaliate. It’s not like anyone there can harm me, unless they’re somehow more powerful than Lilith.” Dean wasn’t happy to agree to this, but they had to go there after all.

Preparations for the trip to Strasbourg took over their entire afternoon and Dean wasn’t unhappy that activity was keeping his mind off what would be happening soon.

“So… What about Castiel? Isn’t he coming?” Charlie asked, her voice carrying a note of fake casualness.

“He will come, but later,” Dean said, zipping up his suitcase and putting it next to the door.

“And did you ask him? About being an archangel I mean?” Judged from the sudden silence from the other side of the room, Sam was listening in too.

“I did. He claims he’s never been anything else than the guardian. I don’t know if he’s just that good of a liar but it seems like he actually doesn’t remember. Unless he was born in the 15th century we’re probably dealing with some form of monster amnesia here,” he explained and then he raised his finger at Charlie. “But he’s not an angel. Just get this nonsense out of your head!”

“So you think that him being a super monster of unknown origins is more comforting than the thought of him being an angel?” Sam asked in disbelief and Dean nodded curtly. This whole question caused him a nasty headache and he really didn’t want to think about it. “Dean! The case here seems to be pretty obvious.” Dean turned around, crossing his arms over his chest with a challenging expression. Sam didn’t back down, his own frown remaining firmly in place.

“No, Sam. You just want it to be. You’re still hoping for some sort of miracle rescue. You need Cas to be an angel because you think he could swoop down and save me,” he argued, feeling his own mood turning icy. “But have you forgotten the part that says that he’s only watching? Nothing about Cas suggests that he’s a nice guy who would dirty his feathers for insignificant little humans!” He turned around and glared at the table, searching for something to do. In the end he grabbed a book and turned the pages around without seeing anything. “It won’t help us putting our faith in something like this. We’ve got this. We’ve managed to dig up all of this stuff and we’re going to see this through.” Charlie and Sam remained quiet and Dean was glad, because he really didn’t feel like getting into an argument with them.

Because he didn’t want to fall into the painful trap of misguided hope.

* * *

Dean contemplated the merits of scratching his eyes out. He hadn’t understood just what it meant that Switzerland had a barrier against the supernatural until he set foot over the border. It was like the veil was suddenly ripped away. There was sulfur on his tongue and with every breath he seemed to pull more into his lungs. He couldn’t look at Sam properly because he saw yellow eyes in a white face and a crown of thorns on his head. He saw everything that hid in the shadows and underneath the surface of a human shell. All the monsters that walked the earth, all the beasts that glimpsed at him with hungry interest.

Charlie, fortunately, was human through and through. She had a small mark on her forehead which he knew was the sign that the fairy realm had put its claim on her. But it wasn’t malign and it gave Charlie a bit of an ethereal, calming glow that he could appreciate when everything else was dark and hellish.

Getting into the hotel which served as the convention center nearly made Dean’s knees buckle. He could see hellhounds chained to the outside of the building, lifting their heads and sniffing when he passed. They didn’t growl or bark, but they licked their lips and widened their red eyes at him. They walked into the lobby and Dean pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Demons are ugly,” he groaned when Charlie asked him what was wrong. “I can barely look at them.”

“I’m sorry, but this weekend we have a closed convention and are not open for new bookings” a voice spoke up and Dean looked to the side. He only saw a black, mangled mess, with bleeding eyes and hair like wire tangled together. He blinked a couple of times before the vision withdrew and he saw a business woman with black hair and glasses. Her name tag read Cecily.

“That’s alright, sweetheart,” Dean managed to say and pulled out the badges. Cecily’s blue, human eyes widened and he could see the demonic form squint in interest. “We’re here from the American branch of the Men of Letters. I think we have a reservation.”

“Of course, we’ve been expecting you. Just head over to reception and we’ll run you through the rules and guidelines.” Cecily winked at Charlie and then she turned around to attend to a group of trees. When Dean blinked he saw what looked like a traveling group of senior citizens.

“Fucking weird, man,” he muttered to himself and they went to the registration which was fortunately staffed by a bored looking witch. Afterwards they had to go through a search to make sure they brought no physical weapons and Sam had to sign a contract that stated that he wasn’t to use his powers unless it was to defend himself (or his friends, which was an extra clause which took him almost half an hour to debate over.)

They had two hotel rooms, one for Charlie and one for the brothers and once they were done setting up devils traps and all other warding, they finally had a second to rest and look at the program.

“Well, there’s a Guardians of Letters meeting which I think one of us should attend,” Sam said, “and Crowley is holding a panel on ‘The Integrity of Hell. Demon Deals 101’ tomorrow. I think that this might be a good chance to corner him if we don’t manage to get a hold of him before.”

“I’ll take care of the meeting and you two try not to get into too many troubles,” Charlie suggested before she gathered her laptop and left for her own room, to get a shower before the meeting. This left Dean and Sam in a bit of a tense silence.

“How… How do you feel?” Sam asked tentatively and Dean snorted. “I’m serious, man… Your deal is up in 3 weeks and this might be our last shot. Don’t you feel… something?” Dean turned away from the window and stared down at Sam who was sitting on the bed.

“What do you want me to say, Sam?” he asked, trying to mask the uneasiness he felt with irritation. Sam sighed. “Do you want me to say that I’m terrified? Because yes, of course I am! And I’m sick and tired of seeing all the demons and creatures leer at me like I’m a particularly juicy bit of meat. And I’m sick of your sad, worried puppy eyes following my every move. But I can’t let that stop me. There’s no time to fall into your arms and have a good, emotional cry.”

“Well, you could just cry in the shower a bit if you don’t want me to hold you?” Sam suggested, his mouth pulling up into a tiny smile. Dean snorted, but then he shook his head and sat down on the bed.

“I hate being a tool, Sam. And I hate being the reason that hell has got leverage over you,” he said. “And you know it.”

“It’s not your fault, Dean… I would have done the same for you and I don’t care if I have to… I mean I _do_ care, but I _will_ go to hell if it means that it’ll cut your suffering short. That has never been in question and it’s still not now.” Dean felt frustration build in his throat but Sam continued before he could voice it. “We’re in this together. So we best try to get out of it together, no matter what it takes,” he promised. Dean could only nod.

* * *

Dean and Sam hadn’t thought that it would be easy to save Dean’s soul, but they had been riding on a wave of euphoria that things had finally, for once, started to work out. Of course, now that they were here they had to be a bit realistic.

Dean was able to recognize every crossroad demon by the redness of their twisted souls. But whenever they approached one they earned themselves groans.

“Always the Winchesters,” one of them said, her voice sounding bored but Dean could see how the red smoke shook like autumn leaves in the wind. “You’d think that by avoiding the States you’d get out of having to look at your desperate little mugs.”

“Well, yeah, we were just dying to meet the family. Check out the neighbors, you know?” Dean shot back with a tense grin.

“Yes, literally dying,” the demon spat and at least that seemed to cheer her up immensely. “You’ll be seeing hell up close in…” Dean could see how the smoke curled and the coal like eyes peered at him. “Just three short weeks. I can’t wait.”

“You sure about that?” Dean asked, trying to sound as casual and dangerous as he could. Oh how he wished he had a knife to put into her rotten core, just for the sake of it. Or powers like Sam that could even snuff her out with the flick of a wrist. She knew it, all the demons they had talked to so far knew it. “Because sweetheart, once I’m downstairs I’m not going to become any fonder of your lot.” That shut up her chuckling at once and he could see how she wanted to squirm away.

“Just tell us where we can find Crowley,” Sam said, cutting the confrontation short.

“Gentlemen, lady.” It was Cecily again, who came to them on her clacking high heels and with a clip board in her hands. “Is there a problem?” Dean wanted to bark something at her, but the demon chose this moment to slip away and he groaned instead. “You know, if you want to meet Crowley one on one I can pencil in an appointment for you. I’m sure he’s willing to meet you after his panel is done.” She checked her watch. “It started 5 minutes ago, but I’m sure you’ll make it if you hurry.” She smiled at them both. “So I’ll let him know?”

“Yeah. Thanks Cecily,” Sam said while Dean just glared around some more. Cecily nodded and Sam pulled at his arm, tugging him into the direction of the conference room. “Get a grip, Dean!” Sam hissed at him but Dean just felt really irritated. He pulled out his mobile phone, seeing Charlie’s text that she was sitting in on Crowley’s panel.

“Charlie’s got the panel covered. You join her and I’ll go get the egg from the vault, make sure nobody stole it.” Sam didn’t seem convinced but Dean gave him a shove. His brother didn’t protest and went off into the direction of the hall. Dean watched him give a start when a demon made a little curtsey when he passed her and Dean found it almost amusing. He pulled out his phone again and checked if Cas had send a text. So far nothing. Maybe he had changed his mind.

“You still coming?” he texted and when no immediate answer came he went into the direction of the vault. One of the tree things was standing guard and grabbed the box for him.

“Thanks Treebeard,” Dean muttered but didn’t stay long enough to get an answer. He walked to the lounge area where he was served a cup of coffee by a cheerful… something. It wore an apron but there was so much hair that Dean couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. He checked that the sigils he had carved into the box and the content were still undamaged and then he pulled out his mobile phone again.

**“Yes.”** Castiel’s answer was very short, but at least it was something.

“We’re going to meet with Crowley later.”

**“I’m not particularly fond of that man,”** Castiel’s reply came and Dean had to smile. **“But I’ve heard that he is now the king of the crossroads. Irritating but maybe helpful if you are careful.”** King huh? That was news but possibly also very good for Dean’s cause.

“Yeah, will be. Gotta go. See you soon,” he said when he checked his watch. He rose to his feet and took a deep breath. Time for a last shot at saving his life.

* * *

Crowley looked like a businessman. He wore a tailored and expensive looking suit and sat in a leather armchair behind a massive desk.

“The Winchesters! I can’t say that I’m surprised!” he said, his mouth pulled into a smug grin. “Let me guess, you’re here to try to make a deal.”

“Wow, how did you guess?” Dean said flatly and took a seat without waiting for an invitation. Crowley folded his hands on the desk, his expression still mock cheerful. “We’ve got an offer.”

“Oh, do you now?” Crowley asked and laughed, the noise grating on Dean’s nerves. “And why in the bloody hell should I even help you two? After you’ve killed so many of my workers, good employees I might add, in the last ten years!” His voice had steadily risen, but by the time he was done he looked as composed as before. “I’ve already been good to you, Dean, but you’ve squandered the years you’ve been offered.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, forcing himself to stay calm. Crowley rolled his eyes and looked at Sam.

“Not particularly bright that one, is he?” he mocked but received only a puzzled glare and a jerk of his head from Sam. Crowley sighed deeply. “You were supposed to get one year, Dean. And that was already a pretty sweet deal considering the monumental pain in the ass you’ve been for hell. But I managed to secure you 10 years.” Dean could see Sam tense out of the corner of his eyes. And yes, he remembered how the demon has suddenly changed her mind about how much time he’d be given. At the time it hadn’t mattered to him, as long as he got Sam back. “And in those ten years you haven’t found a way to get your sorry ass out of that deal.”

“Why did you do it?” Dean asked, “huh? You could have had me and Sam downstairs within a year.” Crowley merely watched him, without saying anything. And he didn’t have to. “You had no reason to wait, unless.” Dean’s mouth pulled into a smile. “Unless you don’t want us there.” Crowley seemed annoyed.

“Correct. I don’t want you there. Mind you, I don’t care one lick about you. But the idea of a regime change in hell that includes a Winchester as a king and another as a probably high-ranking demon, maybe even a knight? Please. Everybody underestimates your stubbornness but I’m a businessman and I’m practical. I’m sure that you boys will find a way to mess everything up that dedicated and future-orientated demons like me have worked on for so long.”

“So undo the deal,” Sam pressed and Crowley snorted at that, waving his hand dismissively.

“You two have no idea how hell works. Demons are dumb, most of them. No brains, no drive, just a vortex of blind destruction. It’s annoying, really. And very boring. But the thing is that most of the lot still believe in the big master plan that wants to make Sam here the boss. They are creatures of habit and the plan for you has been long in the making. We’re talking centuries here.”

“But why?”

“That’s none of my business,” Crowley said. “Yet,” he added with a smug smile. He opened a drawer and pulled out a scroll. “As things stand I’m still in the minority with wanting to keep you two as far away as possible. And I need something big to change the tide.” Sam looked over at Dean and he nodded. Dean put the chest on the table under Crowley’s watchful but bored eyes. He opened it and put the goblet with the basilisk egg in front of Crowley. Dean knew that his hands were shaking and he hid them under the table as soon as he had unwrapped the egg. Crowley reached out and took the egg, observing it. After a moment he put it back into its goblet.

“A fresh basilisk egg,” Dean told him, “I heard they are pretty valuable if you deal with a connoisseur and we have it on good authority that you are one.”

“Oh, spare me the flirting, Dean,” Crowley admonished and waved his hands at the egg. “This egg you found? It’s the real deal, alright and it is valuable, but there’s no way that I can undo the damage Dean did to himself with just a basilisk egg.” The blood was rushing in Dean’s ears and he had trouble hearing what Crowley said afterwards. Sam next to him was moving in his chair, minutely, maybe he was shaking. Dean just felt cold now, petrified. As if he has indeed fallen under a basilisk’s spell.

“This is just too big,” he vaguely heard Crowley say. “So maybe you should just get used to the idea of breathing hellfire for eternity.”

“No. No there’s got to be something you can do,” Sam pleaded. Dean watched Crowley uncap a fountain pen and put the tip to the parchment in front of him.

“For the egg I can try to make sure that the torture chambers don’t get Dean for too long. Just a little warm-up period and then I’ll get him on my own payroll as a crossroads demon. This is a bit of a loophole, but still within the allowed terms since Dean got his ten years and hell gets Dean.”

“I don’t get how that’ll make anything better!” Sam argued.

“Oh, just use your brain, you idiot!” Crowley complained and pointed his pen towards Dean’s chest. Dean was sure that if he had been closer he would have jammed it into his skin for emphasis. “Being a crossroad demon means that Dean can get topside and you can put a bullet through his brain and wash your hands of the whole ordeal.” Silence followed that exclamation and once Dean chanced a look at Sam, he found his brother wide-eyed and tense.

“You’ve got to be joking!”

“I’m serious about this and it’s a damn good deal. It’ll only take two to three months for Dean to smoke his way upstairs, less if he’s being very obedient which I’m not counting on. And hell doesn’t have another safety net to make sure that you’re coming down once it loses Dean. You have no reason to and killing you will just send you up to the pearly gates of heaven. Unless you do something monumentally stupid in the meantime.” Crowley’s eyes narrowed and he leant back in his chair. “So? What will it be?” Dean looked at his hands.

“Dean, you can’t seriously be thinking about this!” Sam argued and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “It’s a bad deal.”

“Really? It sounds a hell of a lot better than what we were looking forwards to before! Maybe I can’t be saved but you will be!” Dean argued loudly and he could see the frustrated tears collecting in Sam’s eyes. He looked away and towards Crowley. Crowley’s mouth pulled into a small smile and he pushed the contract towards Dean. Sam however reached out and pushed it away, turning towards Dean.

“No!” was all he said and then he turned to Crowley. “Give me something better. If hell wants me anyway then just make us swap places.” Crowley rolled his eyes. “Or just get Dean’s initial contract and tear it up! Void it somehow!” Crowley uttered a long-suffering sigh.

“No. I can’t do that. Maybe you don’t want to hear it but there’s a delicate balance upholding the different planes of existence,” Crowley said. “It’s one thing of value for another thing of equal value. Beings like you or me, we can’t intervene on a scale as big as this. I’m sorry, Sam, but I can’t undo your brother’s deal.” He pointed towards the parchment. “It’s my offer or nothing.”

“What if we bring you something better than a basilisk egg?” Sam pressed and Dean knew that he was grasping at straws now.

“Then we’d have to talk anew, but there’s not much you can offer me that will change my answer,” he said. Sam raised his finger at him, signaling him to give them some time, then he turned towards Dean.

“What if we just hand Cas over?” he whispered and Dean widened his eyes. “A whole basilisk or whatever might actually help.”

“Sam, what the hell are you even saying?!”

“Look, I know it’s a crap deal and I hate myself for bringing it up. But maybe it’ll give us something better than what we were offered,” Sam pleaded and Dean just shook his head.

“There’s no way I’ll do that, I’m sorry, Sam. And you don’t want to do that either. You’re not the kind of guy to do that,” he said and he could see Sam bite his lips in despair. Dean patted the side of his head and then he turned back to Crowley. Obviously he had heard them talk and he seemed intrigued but Dean wasn’t having any of it.

“Is there a time limit on your offer?”

“Well, I’ll still be here tomorrow,” Crowley told them with a smile and capped his pen again. Dean nodded and got up from his chair. He grabbed Sam and hauled him up too. “See you then, boys.” Dean glared at him and pushed Sam out of the room.

* * *

The moment the door to their hotel room closed, Sam was on him.

“What are you thinking?! You can’t possibly accept that deal!”

“What were _you_ thinking?!” Dean demanded in return, giving Sam a shove. “You can’t use Cas as a bargaining chip! What happened to your idealized dream of him being an angel? You’d want to sacrifice something like that for someone like me?!”

“I’m willing to sacrifice everything just to make sure you’re alright!” Sam shouted and his anger made a chair fly out from underneath the small table and crash against the wall. Both of them looked at it.

“And that’s the problem, Sam! That’s always what has gotten us into this mess! This blind rush towards self-destruction!” Dean argued and he could see how pale Sam was, under his messy hair, his eyes wide and red-rimmed. “And we’re going to pay for it, alright! I’m going to pay because I wasn’t able to let you go. But that doesn’t mean we should play into the hands of hell. If I take Crowley’s deal then you’re off the hook!”

“You can’t expect me to kill you, Dean! I’ll have to watch you die and then kill you again?! You can’t honestly believe that I will do it!”

“Why not?” Dean asked and he watched Sam’s face fall. Dean sighed and slumped on the bed. “I’m tired, man. Of all of this. If I take his deal then my torment won’t last long. I’ll come top side and you’ll put an end to me. And it’ll be fine.” Sam just shook his head, unable to say anything. He stared down at his feet and he only heard how Sam left, the door clicking softly after him. Dean pressed his palm against his face, rubbing at his itching but still dry eyes. He lifted his head and looked at the bland ceiling.

“I really could use some help now,” he said to no one. His voice was lost to the stale air.


	9. Chapter 9

Nightmares of hell seemed to follow Dean even out of the meagre three hours of sleep he got. Sam had stumbled into the room long after midnight and when Dean glimpsed at him, the veil distorted him into a pale figure with gold leaking out of his eyes. Dean turned around and tried to sleep, but to no avail. He heaved himself out of bed by the time Sam got up to shower. He scratched his hair and felt nothing. Or not nothing, but some great dark shape in his chest that pushed every other emotion away.

His phone vibrated.

**“The breakfast buffet is nice. Are you awake yet?”** The message was from Cas and Dean supposed he might as well get something to eat even though he didn’t feel like he could keep much down. He slammed his palm against the bathroom door. “I’m gonna grab something to eat!” he shouted and when he heard Sam reply something garbled he thought that was good enough. He also went to knock on Charlie’s door who opened after a moment with her hair in disarray and sticking to her face. “Hello sleeping beauty. I’m gonna grab breakfast in case you’re looking for me.” Charlie yawned.

“I’ll be down in a bit,” she said softly and there was something heavy and sad in her gaze, even clouded over by sleep as it was. Sam had probably spoken with her. The thought made Dean tense up and he stepped close to her to press a kiss to her forehead. “See you later kiddo.” Charlie was still looking at him when the elevator doors closed.

It wasn’t difficult to find the breakfast room and it was still relatively empty. It probably wasn’t the time though he thought when he peeked into the room. There was a creature of almost overwhelming brightness sitting in the corner, close to the big windows. It was tall, wrapped around a human-shaped, darker core. Squinting as he was Dean could still make out wings and a halo. And damn it.

“Good morning, Dean,” the pillar of light greeted and it was Cas. Of course it was Cas. Dean blinked a couple of times, hoping that the vision would fade. It only did gradually and he was still rubbing at his eyes when he joined Castiel at the table.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, but you’re just too freaking bright, Mr. definitely-not-a-basilisk.” Castiel tilted his head to the side, confused. “I’m going to hell in 3 weeks, Cas. I can see through the veil now. Which means I can see the true face of all the supernatural creatures around me, you included.”

“And you don’t like what you see?” Castiel wondered, his voice carefully neutral but also slightly guarded. Dean sighed and rubbed his eyes once more, the afterimages slow to fade.

“I do like to see you. Demons are painful to look at, but you’re made out of light. You’ve got wings and a halo, Cas. Pretty damn angelic to me and I hate to concede that point.” He looked at Castiel to see what kind of reaction that got him. For now Castiel just frowned. Dean sighed. “Okay, let’s just drop it.”

“No, I’m trying to understand,” Castiel admitted and looked up when a demon was carefully making his way to their table, a can of coffee in his hand.

“Good morning, coffee?” he asked and Dean held out his cup. “Enjoy, Mr. Winchester,” he said and then bowed to Castiel. “Great Beast.”

“Thank you,” Castiel replied and turned back to look at Dean. “I don’t understand. What am I supposed to be when not the Great Beast?” Dean kept silent, stirring sugar and milk into his coffee. “Dean.” He let the spoon clatter to the saucer, annoyance flickering over his face.

“I don’t want to believe it because it’s a load of crap, but so far everything is pointing towards angel. Maybe even archangel.” Dean could see surprise on Castiel’s face, but he said nothing. “No reaction?”

“I don’t know what to say. It seems implausible,” Castiel replied and Dean sighed deeply.

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” Castiel opened his mouth but he apparently didn’t know what to do with this information. Dean decided it was best to fill his plate with breakfast, so he left Castiel to go to the buffet. Once he was back Castiel seemed far more composed.

“How has your meeting with Crowley gone?” Castiel asked and Dean snorted humorlessly. “Not good?”

“No… I mean I think it’s better than before. But he couldn’t get me out of the situation for a basilisk egg.”

“Yes, I feared as much,” Castiel replied softly. “What did he give you for it?” Dean didn’t feel like answering, his mouth suddenly not cooperating. He felt Castiel’s warm palm cover his hand. “What did he offer you?”

“To get me out of the torture chamber as quickly as possible and take me under his wing so that Sam can summon and kill me once I’m a crossroad demon.” The words tumbled out of Dean’s mouth and lay heavily between them now. Dean reluctantly picked up his fork and started eating. “I’m still going to die in 3 weeks.”

“Have you accepted his deal?” Castiel wanted to know, his voice almost unbearably gentle just like the fingers wrapping themselves around his wrist.

“No. Not yet. I will go meet him again once I can find his secretary to pencil me in for a meeting. I’ll have to accept before Sam comes up with something stupid to try to bail me out.” Castiel didn’t let go of his hand but he did sigh. Dean wasn’t sure what it meant but he didn’t want to dissect Cas’ emotions. Hell, he didn’t even want to touch his own anytime soon. Bracing himself and maybe buying Crowley’s _Crossroad Deals For The Ambitious Demon_ book seemed to be the best option now. Three to four months Crowley had said. In less than half a year everything would be over. He’d be gone and things would probably fall into place after that. No great seismic shifts in hell, no tragedies on earth, none but his own. Things would just continue to be the same and maybe that was good.

Castiel kept on holding his hand and Dean didn’t even think about letting go.

* * *

Charlie and Sam joined them and they ate a mostly subdued breakfast, into which Charlie sometimes chanced to ask Castiel a couple of questions. Dean stopped those going into the angel territory with a sharp look, but otherwise things were almost nice. Charlie seemed to like Castiel.

“Is there nothing you can do, Cas?” Sam asked once they were looking for the ever busy Cecily. “All the demons here shy away from you. You must be powerful. I know you prefer to stand back and watch, but… But it’s about Dean.” Dean bristled at that. As if that would make a difference in the greater scheme of things.

“I don’t know,” Castiel said but if he had wanted to elaborate then he was cut short by Charlie calling. She had found Cecily.

“Ah, the Winchesters again and…,” her eyes widened almost comically as she took Castiel in.

“Castiel,” he offered and it took Cecily a moment to shake herself out of her stupor.

“Of course. What an honor to have you here today,” she said hastily. “So what will it be?”

“Another meeting with Crowley,” Dean said but before Cecily could write something down, Castiel lifted his hand.

“I would also like to meet with Crowley if he would be available,” Castiel said and Cecily stared at him, just like Dean did. “If I understand correctly he has wanted to speak to me since we last met in the 18th century.”

“Yes!” Cecily squeaked. “Yes, of course! Wow, he will be very thrilled. I’ll clear all his other appointments right away!” she said and pulled out her mobile phone.

“Hey!” Dean complained and then threw up his arms. “I can’t believe it. I thought I’m a VIP here.”

“Well, you’re not… whatever Cas is,” Charlie teased and clapped him on the back in sympathy.

“What do you even want with Crowley?” Dean demanded, trying to play up his irritation even though he was worried. Castiel smiled and then he vanished into thin air.

“Oh? Where did he go? Crowley will be available in ten minutes,” Cecily said, looking around in confusion but clearly relieved that Castiel was gone. Grumbling, Dean made his way back to the vault, where he got his entry ticked to a short life as a crossroads demon and then they made their way to Crowley, whether he had time for them or not.

Castiel was already there and Crowley was smiling even though his gaze was calculating. Dean noticed that Castiel was carrying something under his arm. Something big wrapped in a leather cloth.

“Ah, Dean! How about you come in as well? I’ll get to your case just after I’m done with Castiel here,” he offered and Dean saw no reason to object. He was dying to know what Castiel wanted with Crowley. “Okay! Come in kids! But the girl and the giant have to stay outside. Confidentiality issues,” he said even when Charlie and Sam started to protest.

“Don’t sign anything without me!” Sam hissed, holding on to Dean’s arm. His entire face was pale, his fingers digging into the flesh of Dean’s arm almost painfully. “Promise!”

“Yeah, alright,” he said and reluctantly, Sam let go of him. Dean walked into the room and the door closed with a dull sound promising finality. Whatever was going to happen in this room, it would seal Dean’s fate. Castiel was already sitting in the chair in front of Crowley and the demon looked so pleased it was almost sickening. His human shell seemed to be composed and businesslike but his true face was rolling around, excited, lustful almost. Whatever he thought he could get out of Castiel, Crowley was only too eager to get it. Dean sat down next to Castiel on the chair.

“Castiel. How long has it been? Two centuries? I was upset, you never returned my amorous love letters, or telegrams, or calls,” Crowley started and he really seemed to enjoy this.

“We had nothing to discuss, I felt it redundant to meet you,” Castiel replied and Crowley’s mouth pulled into a bigger smile.

“But now you do. Now there’s something you want and I’m dying to know what it could be,” he said but then Dean felt his eyes on him, calculating again. “Don’t tell me you’re going to take a stand. You. For the likes of him?” Dean gave a start and watched, mesmerized, as Castiel put the object down with a thud. He unwrapped it and Dean wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Crowley’s eyes widened though. It did look like an egg of sorts, but it was big and shiny, its surface a pearl like stone.

“This is a fossilized basilisk egg. The real thing, actually laid by a basilisk,” Crowley explained in awe, probably for Dean’s benefit. “Oh boy, you don’t know what the Great Beast is putting on the table here.”

“But… What about my egg?” Dean wondered and looked down at his box.

“Minor basilisks hatch from eggs laid by a rooster and incubated by a snake. It’s not as rare as it sounds, especially if you have farms,” Crowley told him, his eyes still on the object. “What our little feathered friend here has is of far greater value than yours. I can still sell you something good for it, but this here?” Crowley pointed at the egg and then left the sentence hanging open.

“Will it be enough to save Dean or not,” Castiel asked and Dean stared at him in disbelief. Crowley seemed to think about this hard, rubbing his face and then leaning his arms on his table, hands linked.

“I can get Dean ten more years. It’s possible that within those years I can manage to sway those who still hold on to the contract. But I can’t make promises,” Crowley said and Dean knew that he meant it. He wanted Dean and Sam as far away from hell as Dean did.

“Jesus.” Crowley flinched and glared at Dean in irritation. But Dean was too busy to try to come to terms with this development. Ten more years. Ten more years to figure out how to get out of it. Ten more years for hell’s power struggles to maybe change in a way that would make them abandon the deal. And even if nothing changed, he’d get ten years more on earth before he had to go to hell. He’d be a good age then, for a hunter. Dean looked at Castiel, finding a stern look on his face. “Cas, are you sure you-“

“No. That’s not good enough. We both know that there is a way to keep the balance intact. Hell hasn’t had a king for ages and to get a human one would have dire consequences. Name the price for Dean’s soul.” Crowley leant back in his chair.

“Hell has no use for a Winchester king. It’s a stupid plan, something long whispered in the deepest and coldest pits of hell. You, my feathered friend, should be well aware of it. Being an angel and all.”

“What the hell, you know about that?!” Dean asked and quickly darted a look at Castiel to find him stony faced and pale, his true face quivering. “I’ve been trying to convince Cas that he’s not a basilisk and he just doesn’t believe me.”

“It took me years to figure it out because angels haven’t walked the earth in two thousand years. That was before my time as a demon, I’m young and ambitious. But demonic memory and the memory of the spirit world go way beyond that. He’s Castiel, angel of Thursday, a seraph. Not an archangel like the lore says. He’s an expendable soldier, which is why nobody particularly missed him when he got his head whammied by the shock of landing on earth. It took a lot of careful listening to whispers and echoes of the echoes of whispers, but I’m good. And I figured you out, kitten.” Castiel was clenching the leather of the armrests, his fingers digging into them, easily piercing the surface. Dean doubted this was a good time to hold his hand in support. “You might have your mind wiped, but if you’ve still got your Grace and your blade you’ll be back to your old self in no time.” Castiel was still tense but he slowly unclenched his fists.

“Name your price,” Castiel whispered dangerously and when it already sent an uncomfortable shiver down Dean’s spine, he doubted Crowley was doing any better. Crowley remained silent, just watching, for a long, long time and Dean started to wonder if there was no price. It was weird to say the least to have people debate over him like this. What kind of things could you put on the scale so that it was equivalent to the worth of Dean’s soul? Was it even about Dean’s soul for those two supernatural beings? What kind of balance were they trying to achieve?

“Come to hell, Castiel,” finally left Crowley’s mouth and Dean felt horror pool in his stomach. “Be my chess piece, clean up. I’m the king of crossroads, but I’m climbing my way up to be the king of hell. If the rest of Lilith’s entourage is dead there’s no one to protest the dissolution of Dean’s deal. Your servitude for as long as it takes, for the soul of Dean Winchester.” Crowley’s voice rang loud in the room, the cadence of it slow and pleased, his red smoke settling, knowing that he was going to strike a good deal now. But surely Cas wouldn’t-

“I agree.” Dean opened his mouth but no sound could come out. He felt like he was under water as he watched Crowley write up a contract, he watched how the basilisk egg changed hands, he watched as Crowley leant over the table to press a kiss to Castiel’s lips, sealing the deal. Cecily was there, showing Crowley the picture she took of their groundbreaking deal and he saw the demon’s wide smile and Castiel’s pale face. He felt hands on him, heard some words spoken, but there was nothing in his head. Nothing.

* * *

 

It was the sound of Sam’s sobs which woke Dean up again. He gave a start and looked around. He stood outside of Crowley’s office. Mere minutes must have passed. He saw Charlie wipe her eyes and Sam wasn’t even trying to keep in his sobbing. He felt Castiel’s presence next to him, the same warm energy that tickled up his shoulder. He didn’t want to look at his face so he looked down, saw how he had his hand firmly clasped around Castiel’s wrist. Possessively or protectively, maybe even angrily. He couldn’t quite make sense of what he felt.

“So you’ve got ten more years? And by that time Crowley will have been installed as king and all the boyking plans will be abandoned?”

“Yes,” he heard Castiel say. “I had to make sure that the balance would be preserved. With Sam as a king it would have soon tipped over into chaos. Of course, I mean no disrespect to Sam’s leadership qualities.” Sam huffed a wet laugh.

“And we can trust Crowley?” he wanted to know.

“You can trust me to take out Crowley in case he ever comes for you,” Castiel promised. “You and your families are protected. For a couple of generations at least.” Dean looked at Castiel now, finding his face gentle but drawn.

“What were you thinking?!” he hissed and all eyes came to rest on him. Finally, the numbness was pulled away and he felt shame fill him to the brim, but what made it out of his mouth was only anger and reproach. “You’re an angel and you just sold your service for what could be ten years to hell!”

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed and Dean wanted to slap him, but he settled for slamming him into the wall instead, hands on the lapels of his trench coat. He heard Charlie shriek and Sam was grabbing at his shoulder.

“I’m not worth this kind of sacrifice!” Dean shouted and he knew he felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes, but he was too angry to care.

“You are,” Castiel said and Dean let the lapels go at once, stunned. “You don’t deserve to go to hell.” Dean shook his head and put his hands on Castiel’s cheeks. They were warm and soft underneath his touch and Dean craved _something_.

“But why me? You always stood by for centuries.”

“Did I really? Apparently I stumbled out of Heaven because I wanted to save this town,” Castiel told him. “And why not you? I like you and I care about you and thinking about a world in which you suffer and I could have prevented it? I knew I couldn’t bear it. All talk of the balance of worlds didn’t matter. What matters are humans, like you. Especially you.” Dean bent over slightly until he could press his forehead to Castiel’s. “You deserve to go home. Dean. Go home.”

The light above them flickered and went out. The summit was over. The crisis had passed. It was time to leave. Dean pressed a kiss to Castiel’s lips, not trusting himself to speak. Then he let Sam and Charlie pull at him gently. He still watched Castiel, as he stood next to the office door, looking small and lost, a beacon of light in the darkness. The red smoke spilled into the corridor, Crowley looked out of the room and grinned up at Castiel.

“Shall we?” Castiel lifted his hand to wave at Dean, then he turned around and left.

Dean felt something tear open inside of his chest even as the hellhounds outside lay down to rest, all interest lost.

* * *

Charlie and Sam tiptoed around him for the time it took to wrap this case up. He sent Castiel text messages regularly but after two days the answers stopped coming. Dean wondered about the likelihood of dying in a plane crash, now that everything was said and done. He wrapped the unused basilisk egg up and debated throwing it into the Rhine. It was useless now, but he supposed they should keep it after Bela had gone to such great lengths to procure it. 

The morning before he was supposed to leave he sat on Barfüsserplatz, watched the clock strike ten and missed the magic. No exciting shiver went down his spine, no warm presence touched his shoulder, the wind didn’t pick up to tickle his face. A few people looked up and pigeons stopped puttering about. As if they waited for something, as if the breath was trapped in their lungs just like Dean’s was. But then the bells started chiming, the museum was unlocked and people shook out of whatever trance they were in. The pigeons flew up and sat down on the roof of the museum now that the silent guardian was no longer watching the city from this elevated place. Dean stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, feeling chilly despite it being the end of April and turned his back on the city.

* * *

A woman was standing in front of the display window of the sex shop and for a moment Dean didn’t give her any attention. He put the key into the lock to their temporary home and, almost on a whim, looked up again. The woman caught his eye and they were the exact same shade of blue as Castiel’s. Her light brown hair spilled out in waves from underneath her hat. She looked normal but Dean still saw the afterimages of hell and he could see that she was made of light, crowned by a halo.

“Dean Winchester,” she called and Dean abandoned his attempt to get into the house, letting the key stick in its lock. “My name is Muriel.”

“Fancy meeting another angel in front of a sex shop,” he tried to joke, but his throat was closing up and he couldn’t keep the charade going. “Castiel, is he…”

“He established connection with us,” she said and Dean breathed a sigh of relief. “When we heard his tentative call we were all shocked. We had thought him fallen or dead, not that he had merely lost his memory. We’ve been in contact with him ever since.”

“And what is happening… down there?” Dean asked and saw a small smile on the angel’s face.

“He’s cleaning up old messes,” Muriel explained. “His former garrison has set off to help him.” Muriel put her hand on Dean’s arm. “Don’t worry. He will be fine and he will return to his rightful place in no time at all.” Dean knew that he should be happy, but… “I have been asked to return you to your home. Castiel told me you have a fear of flying, so I came to teleport you. It’s quick and painless.” She winked at him and Dean, surprised as he was, managed a small smile in return.

Charlie and Sam were surprised to meet another angel, but more than ecstatic to have it confirmed that angels exist.

“So you’ll be like our personal guardian angel for a while?” Charlie pressed and offered Muriel tea and cookies, both of which she accepted with a bemused expression.

“Castiel insisted that you should be protected for a while, at least until the time of Dean’s original deal has passed.”

“There’s no… I mean there’s no danger that Crowley tricked us, right?” Sam asked in alarm and sighed in relief when she shook her head. “Okay so… how are we doing this? We’re just going back to the Bunker?” Muriel nodded. “Huh, that’s almost too easy. I was already preparing myself to force Dean on the plane.” Dean remained silent and Sam knew him well enough to not tease him anymore. He was not in the mood for it. He just wanted to go home now.

* * *

Dean felt something fall into place once he was back in the Bunker. Things were familiar now and he could almost forget the last couple of weeks had ever happened. He still woke up in a sweat from time to time, feeling the phantom teeth of hellhounds gnawing at his bones and he thought he could smell sulfur once or twice.

He went for drives in his car, long drives, mindless and aimless drives, just to feel the road beneath him. It was open now, he could go wherever he wanted to, but somehow when he came back after a day out he felt at a loss.

Sam wasn’t doing much better even though he put up a better front than Dean.

“We’ve done this for 10 years. For 10 years every waking day has been dedicated to turning our fate around,” Sam said when both of them sat down on the couch with a beer in their hands and a numbness in their bones. “And what now?”

“What now…” Dean repeated it and the question hung between them like stale air.

* * *

The day that Dean’s original deal was due was coming to a close, all of them were in a state of high alert. They locked themselves up in the bunker and added all the warding they could, put Muriel in front of the door and waited, barely able to speak. But midnight passed quietly and Muriel nodded at them when the sun was up. It was really over. The big fight, the old plan. Sam wouldn’t become the king of hell and Dean wouldn’t turn into a demon. They were just regular guys in their thirties now, maybe a bit worse for wear and most of their qualifications fake, but they were out. It was done.

“Well, happy birthday, Sam,” Dean said and Sam wrapped him in a hug.

* * *

“Maybe I’ll go back to college. Or I’ll… I don’t know. At this point sweeping the floors at a store seems like a good, new challenge,” Sam said one morning, while Dean was munching on his cereals with bleary eyes and a head full of stuffy, vague dreams.

“Uh-huh,” he managed to mutter.

“I just know I want out, you know? I love this place and being a Man of Letters is good and all that, but I’m ready to do it part-time only,” he continued and then he nudged Dean with his foot. “What about you?”

“Me?” Dean asked and tried to hide how the question caused a spike of panic and regret within his chest. It hurt but he pushed it back down.

“Yeah, you. Do you want to go to college?”

“I’m 35. Don’t you think I’m a bit too old to get started in college?” Dean asked. “That’s a dream I put behind me long ago.” He didn’t need to look up to know what kind of pitying expression Sam would be wearing.

“Or maybe you can fix cars with Bobby? He isn’t getting any younger, I’m sure you could take over the salvage yard?” Sam asked and Dean shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said but his thoughts were somewhere else. When he was thinking of home now, it had stopped being Bobby’s place and even the Bunker was moving further and further away. He thought about a house, somewhere, with plants, a normal job, something insignificant. Maybe a wife, maybe kids. But no matter what he thought about, he always saw Cas in his too big trench coat, trying to figure out how to fry eggs, smiling at him over the rim of his coffee cup. Cas, who was somehow so far away, rearranging hell as Crowley’s glorified chess piece. Cas who had a rightful place somewhere so up high that Dean doubted he’d ever reach. He shook his head. “Yes, I think I’ll have to ask Bobby about it. Can’t be too bad to get my hands into the insides of a car again.”

Sam smiled, but he saw in his eyes that he knew.

“You miss him, don’t you?” Dean gripped his cereal bowl a bit too hard. “Or do you just feel guilty?” Dean didn’t say anything and he was sure that Sam could read his silence just as well as the half-lies Dean would have offered him. “Because I do… I mean… He’s an angel, he’ll be fine. But he’s making sure that we’re both free. And I haven’t had the chance to thank him properly yet.” Dean only snorted because there was nothing he could say. Sam let him be after a while and left under the pretext of checking out college courses. Dean lowered his head and grabbed his phone. He scrolled through the list of texts he had sent Cas, all of them unanswered.

“I bet you’re going to miss Starbucks once you’re back up in Heaven,” he typed and then he put the phone away again. He pressed his fingers to his forehead and groaned.

“Get a grip, Dean,” he muttered to himself. “It didn’t mean anything.” He shook his head. “An angel just went to hell for you because he thinks you’re worth it, but no big deal.” He sniffed and pushed himself away from the table, dumping his soggy cereal into the sink. If Cas thought he was worth it, then maybe he should make sure that he didn’t waste the rest of his life wallowing in guilt.

* * *

In the end it took four months.

He had dumped the fake credit cards in the trash, enrolled himself in college just like Sam, did research on the weekends and worked in a stupid coffee shop of all places because he was sick of Bela’s jokes that she was his sugar mom. Sure, yes, Bela paid his and Sam’s college fees and Charlie sometimes hacked into things to make sure that they had fake records that made them seem less suspicious, but in the end Dean wanted to stand on his own two feet. Wobbly feet, yes, because he didn’t know how to be normal. He had never had the chance. For Sam it was easier, he made friends almost at once and did his best to drag Dean along or to make his friends come to get their drinks at the coffee shop where Dean worked, so they would drop some tips into the jar. But for Dean it was hard. He was 35 now, a life spent hunting, and normalcy felt to him like the fake FBI suits had felt years ago. He knew he’d grow into it and that eventually he’d get used to it in a way that lying came easily. But right now he was happy to take out his frustration on the coffee machine, his boss Becky rolling her eyes fondly. (Of course, only because she had set her sight on Sam for some reason. So he could get away with a smashed cup here, a wrong order there, and she even vowed not to mention the time where she caught him staring at a cinnamon roll forlornly because it had reminded him of Cas.)

He was just putting on his apron when his phone vibrated. The shop was still mostly empty so he pulled it out. He almost let it drop when he saw that he had a message from Castiel.

**“I almost forgot how fresh the air smells,”** it read. **“I could do with a cup of coffee.”** Dean gaped at it for long enough that Becky came to peer at the phone.

“Cas? Is that your girlfriend you’ve been pining over?” she asked and Dean was glad that she didn’t reprimand him for checking his phone during work time. “Or boyfriend?” Dean didn’t manage to answer but Becky left him alone with a knowing smile and cleaned up the tables for him because he was too damn distracted to do anything but stare.

**“I’m working in a coffee shop right now. I’d invite you to a cup if you want. We also have cinnamon rolls,”** he typed back, feeling his heart beat quickly. His fingers were kinda slippery but he got the job done. He put down the phone and stared at the screen. The little bell over the door chimed.

“I’d love a coffee,” he heard and he squeezed his eyes shut. Once he looked up he found Castiel standing in front of him. He wore an impeccable looking suit, probably tailored and given to him by Crowley and his hair might have been combed once but was already starting to be messy. He still wore his trench coat and while he looked tired, he was also smiling. “Please?”

Dean prepared the coffee with almost trembling hands and Becky shoved him away and told him to get a seat. She delivered the cups to the table once Dean and Cas were sitting, giving Dean a very obvious wink and a thumbs up.

“Thanks, Becky. I owe you.”

“Just get me a date with that hot brother of yours,” she said and Dean rolled his eyes. Then he turned towards Cas and he only had to see his small smile before he wrapped him up in a proper hug. His coat felt warm and there was a lingering heat to him, he smelled like ash, with a bit of sulfur underneath.

“You’re mad. You just came out of hell and this is the first place you think to go?” Dean demanded and made sure that Cas wasn’t lifting his head from Dean’s shoulder.

“Where else should I go? I had to know you were alright,” Castiel told him. He let himself be held for a while. “Dean, the coffee is getting cold.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry sweetheart,” he said and let Castiel go so that he could get his cup of coffee. He watched him closely, looking for injuries or any changes in him. But he seemed the same as ever. “Everything okay down in hell?”

“Yes. You and your brother are both free to live normal human lives,” Castiel replied and looked up at Dean, a soft smile on his lips. “Which I think you’ve been doing. I’m happy to see it.” Dean nodded. Dean watched him drink his coffee, uncertainly gluing his mouth shut. Once Castiel put his empty coffee cup down on the table, Dean had worked himself up to say something. But everything he could blurt out was:

“Stay with me.” Castiel looked at him in surprise but didn’t say anything. Dean decided to ignore embarrassment and just go on. “I know you have a home in Basel, I know you might want to go back to Heaven now that you remember. But Cas… Cas you belong with me. I know this is selfish of me to say but you do.” Castiel continued studying him.

“Dean… Even though I’m not a basilisk, I am the Great Beast. If I leave the wards might disappear over time.”

“Cas. The world will go on, even without you. People will make deals whether you’re there or not. And they don’t know how to appreciate you. I do. And I want you with me.” Castiel was turning his head away but Dean was having none of it. He grabbed his chin gently and turned him around so that he could look down into his eyes. “Cas. That place wasn’t your home. Your house was empty, you were lonely. But back in the Bunker there’s a pillow with your name on it.”

“Is there?” Castiel asked, a small smile on his lips and Dean narrowed his eyes at him.

“Not literally. I mean do you want me to stich your name on it? I will, dude.” Castiel huffed a laugh and Dean lifted his hand to catch Becky’s attention. She held up a cup of coffee and he nodded. It didn’t take long before Becky came to replace their cups and she showed him another very enthusiastic smile. “And it doesn’t have to be the Bunker. I’m trying to make some money and I can buy us something, maybe clear out a haunted house that nobody wants to buy. I mean, not now obviously but in the next couple of years?”

“I haven’t been to America in a while,” Castiel finally said and Dean latched on to that.

“Yeah! Why not spend half of the 21st century here, with me and then afterwards you can still go do whatever you want to do.” Castiel didn’t look at Dean, but he was smiling, a faint blush on his cheeks.

“I could do with a vacation…,” he admitted and Dean grabbed his face to kiss him.

Becky shrieking in delight put an end to the kiss, but he couldn’t find it in himself to glare at her.

“You’ve got to invite me to the wedding,” she told them excitedly, “of course, I will have experience by then because I just feel like Sam’s going to ask me out any time now.” She sat herself down in front of them, bringing pie and other sweets with her. “I mean I can just see it. Castiel will look amazing in white.”

“Aren’t you jumping the gun here?” Dean complained and Becky shrugged.

“If you want it then I don’t know why you should spend ten years waiting for it,” she said and Dean remained quiet for a while, taken aback.

“Yeah… I suppose you’re right,” Dean said and looked at Castiel. “But let’s try dating properly first. Figure out if I’m…” he coughed and saw Castiel’s smile widen. “Worth it.”

“I’m sure you’re worth it. But I’d like to date,” he said.

“Wonderful,” Becky answered in Dean’s stead and he shot her an irritated look. “Now, about this pie. I want to add it to the menu, but somehow it lacks something and I can’t place my finger on what,” she said but Dean let her rambling wash over him, happy to feel Castiel lean against him. Who knew where they would be in ten years, but for the first time in a long time – maybe the first time ever – he was looking forwards to the years to come.

 

**End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story and I hope you enjoyed the little trip to Switzerland! ♥


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